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KARL  BITTER 

A  BIOGRAPHY 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO.  ILLINOIS 


THE  BAKER  4  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

NKW  YOBK 

THE  J.  K.  GILL  COMPANY 

PORTLAND.  ORSOON 

THE  CUNNINGHAM.  CURTISS  &  WELCH  COMPANY 

LOS  ANGELES 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LOKDONAND  EDINDDRQH 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKTO.  OSAKA.  KYOTO.  rUKUOKA. 8ENDAI 

THE  MISSION  BOOK  COMPANY 

SHANGHAI 


1       PORTR.Ml    OF   KARL  UITTER   (1912) 


KARL   BITTER 

A   BIOGRAPHY 


FERDINAND  SCHEVILL 


ISSUED    UNDER   THE  AUSPICES    OF 
THE  NATIONAL  SCULPTURE  SOCIETY 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Copyright  1917  By 
The  National  Sculpture  Society 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  June  1917 
Second  Impression  December  1917 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

Tlie  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois.  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


List  of  Illustrations vii 

Chronological  List  of  the  Works  of  Karl  Bitter      .     .     ix 
Concise  Table  of  Biographical  Data  and  Leading  Honors  xiii 


CHAPTER 


I.  The  Wheel  of  Life i 

IL  Vienna 3 

III.  The  Land  of  Freedom 11 

IV.  Struggle  and  Success  in  the  New  World      ...  20 

V.  The  Pan-American  Exposition:  Climax  and  End  of 

the  Decorative  Period 32 

VI.  The  New  Century:    New  Aims  and  Old  Respon- 
sibilities    39 

VII.  Public  Services  and  Public  Commissions  ....  47 

VIII.  Finale:  The  Man  and  His  Work 57 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FRONTISPIECE 

1.  Portrait  of  Karl  Bitter  (19 12) 

at  the  end  of  the  book 

2.  Portrait  of  Karl  Bitter  (1907) 

3.  Competition  Panel  for  the  Trinity  Gates,  Lower  Broad- 

way, New  York  City 

4.  Trinity  Gate,  Lower  Broadway,  New  York  City 

5.  Pediment,  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Station,  Philadelphia,  Penn- 

sylvania 

6.  Andiron,  Biltmore,  North  Carolina 

7.  Fountain,  Biltmore,  North  Carolina 

8.  Dr.  Pepper,  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 

9.  Sculpture  (One  of  Four  Figures),  MetropoUtan  Museum  of 

Art,  New  York  City 

10.  Dewey  Arch,  Battle  Group 

11.  Standard-Bearer,   Pan-American  Exposition,  Buffalo,  New 

York 

12.  Thanatos,  Hubbard  Memorial,  Montpelier,  Vermont 

13.  ViLLARD  Memorial,  Sleepy  Hollow,  New  York 

14.  Detail  of  Villard  Memorial 

15.  Ogden  Tablet,  New  York  City 

16.  Herron  Tablet,  Art  Institute,  Indianapolis,  Indiana 

17.  Fountain,  Dayton,  Ohio 

18.  Portrait  Group,  Mrs.  C.  R.  Crane  and  Boy 

vii 


LIST     OF     ILLUSTRATIONS 

19.  Portrait  Bust  of  Mrs.  Edwin  Emerson 

20.  Louisiana  Purchase  Group,  St.  Louis,  Missouri 

21.  General  Sigel,  Riverside  Drive,  New  York  City 

22.  Head  of  Carl  Schurz 

23.  Schurz  Monument,  Morningside  Park,  New  York  City 

24.  Schurz  Panel 

25.  Schurz  Panel 

26.  Caryatids,  First  National  Bank,  Cleveland,  Ohio 

27.  Alexander  Hamilton,  Court  House,  Cleveland,  Ohio 

28.  Thomas  Jefferson,  University  of  Virginia,    Charlottesville, 

Virginia 

29.  Dr.  Angell  Memorial,  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan 

30.  Pediment,  Capitol  at  Madison,  Wisconsin 

31.  Detail  of  Lowry  Monument,  Minneapolis,  Minnesota 

32.  Diana,  Statuette  in  Bronze 

33.  Prehn  Memorial,  Passaic,  New  Jersey 

34.  Detail  of  Prehn  Memorial 

35.  Kasson  Memorial,  Utica,  New  York 

36.  Fotjntain  for  the  Gardens  of  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr., 

Pocantico  Hills,  New  York 

37.  Sketch  for  the  Depew  Fountain,  IndianapoUs,  Indiana 

38.  FiGLTRE  (Unfinished)  for  the  Pl-vza  Fountain,  New  York  City 

39.  Pen  Drawing 

40.  Pen  Drawing 

41.  House  at  Weehawken  (Studio  Building  Concealed  behind 

the  House) 


VIU 


CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  WORKS  OF 
KARL  BITTER 

(The  dates  indicate,  as  far  as  possible,  the  year  of  completion.    The  list  is  not  exhaust- 
ive, no  attempt  having  been  made  to  include  minor  labors.) 

1891.  Competition  Panel  for  the  Trinity  Gates. 

1893.  Heroic  Groups  for  the  Administration  Building  of  the 

World's  Fair,  Chicago. 
Sculptural  Decorations  for  the  Residence  of  C.  P. 
Huntington,  New  York  City. 

1894.  Pediment,  Waiting- Room  Panel,  and  Other  Sculptures  for 

the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Station,  Philadelphia. 
Trinity  Gate,  New  York  City. 

1895.  Sculptural  Decorations  for  the  Residences  of  George 

W.  Vanderbilt  at  New  York  City  and  Biltmore,  North 
Carolina. 

1896.  Three  Caryatids,  St.  Paul  Building,  New  York  City. 

1898.  Statue  of  Dr.  William  Pepper,  Philadelphia. 
Sculptural  Decorations  for  the  Residence  of  Louis 

Stern,  New  York  City. 

1899.  Fountain  for  Jacob  H.  Schiff,  Seabright,  New  Jersey. 
Battle  Group  for  the  Dewey  Arch,  New  York  City. 

1900.  Pulpit  and  Choir  Rail,  All  Angsls'  Church,  New  York  City. 
Grout  "Peace,"  Appellate  Division  of  the  Supreme  Court, 

New  York  City. 

1901.  Four  Figures  on  the  Facade  of  the   Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art,  New  York  City. 
Mounted    Standard-Bearers    for    the    Pan-American 
Exposition,  BulTalo. 

L\ 


CHRONOLOGICAL    LIST    OF    WORKS 

1902.  Bust  of  Mrs.  Siedenburg,  New  York  City. 
Breckenridge  Memorial  Tablet,  Annapolis. 

1903.  John  Hubbard  Memorl\l,  Montpelier,  Vermont. 

Group  in  Marble  for  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  New 

York  City. 
Marble  Panel  for  the  Residence  of  Mrs.  Goodyear, 

Buffalo,  New  York. 

1904.  Louisiana  Purchase  Monument,  St.  Louis,  Missouri. 
ViLLARD  Memorial,  Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery  on  the  Hudson. 
Rebecca  Foster  Memorial,  Criminal  Court  Building,  New 

York  City. 

1905.  Portrait  Bust  of  Oliver  Harriman  Baby. 

1906.  Group  for  the  United  States  Custom  House,  New  York 

City. 
Portrait  Group  of  Mrs.  Charles  R.  Crane  and  Boy. 

1907.  Equestrian  Statue  of  General  Sigel,  New  York  City. 
Tablet  for  Robert  Ogden,  New  York  City. 

1 90S.  West  Wing  Pediment,  Wisconsin  State  Capitol,  Madison. 
Bust  of  Dr.  Kiliani. 
Model  for  Henry  Hudson  Statue. 
Granite  Groups  for  the  First  National  Bank  Building, 
Cleveland,  Ohio. 

1909.  Fountain  for  Cemetery,  Dayton,  Ohio. 

William  H.  Baldwin  Memorial,  Tuskegee,  Alabama. 
Four  Chinese  Figures,  Brooklyn  Art  Institute. 

1910.  East  Wing  Pediment,  Wisconsin  State  Capitol,  Madison. 
Memorial  to  Dr.  Angell,  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan. 

Lords  Somers  and  Mansfield,  Statues  for  the  County 
Court  House,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 


CHRONOLOGICAL     LIST    OF     WORKS 

iQii.  Prehn  Mausoleum,  Passaic,  New  Jersey. 

Bust  of  Mrs.  Edwin  Emerson. 

Portrait,  in  Relief,  of  Mr.  Cassatt,  Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania. 

Two  Marble  Tablets  for  the  John  Herron  Art  Insti- 
tute, Indianapolis,  Indiana. 

1912.  Four  Groups  at  Foot  of  Dome,  Wisconsin  State  Capitol, 

Madison. 
Statue  of  Senator  Dryden,  Newark,  New  Jersey. 
Diana  (Statuette),  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York 

City. 
Portrait  of  Mrs.  H.  C.  Bradley,  Madison,  Wisconsin. 

1913.  Carl  Schltrz  Memorial,  New  York  City. 
Memorial  to  President  Tappan,  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan. 
Heroic  Statue  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  St.  Louis,  Missouri. 

1 91 4.  Heroic  Statue  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  County  Court  House, 

Cleveland,  Ohio. 
Heroic  Statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  County  Court 

House,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
Fountain  for  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  Pocantico  Hills, 

New  York. 

1915.  Monument  to  Thomas  Lowry,  MinneapoUs,  Minnesota. 
Statue  of  President  Andrew  D.  White,  Ithaca,  New  York. 
Statue   of   Thomas  Jefferson,   University   of  Virginia, 

Charlottesville. 
Kasson  Memorl\l,  Utica,  New  York. 

Plastalina  Sketch  for  the  Depew  Fountain,  Indian- 
apolis, Indiana. 

Figure  (Unfinished)  for  the  Plaza  Fountain,  New  York 
City. 


XI 


CONCISE  TABLE  OF  BIOGRAPHICAL  DATA  AND 
LEADING  HONORS 

1867,  December  6.     Birth  at  Vienna,  Austria. 

1889,  November  22.     Arrival  in  America. 

igoi,  June  30.  Marriage  at  New  York  City  to  Marie  A. 
Schevill,  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  Children:  Francis,  b.  July  22,  1902; 
Marietta,  b.  October  14,  1904;  John  Frederick,  b.  April  8,  1909. 

1915,  April  10.     Death  at  New  York  City. 


1 899-1 90 1.     Director  of  Sculpture,  Pan- American  Exposition, 
Buffalo. 

1902-4.     Director  of  Sculpture,  St.  Louis  World's  Fair. 

191 2-15.     Director  of  Sculpture,  Panama-Pacific  Exposition, 
San  Francisco. 

1906-8.     President  National  Sculpture  Society;  also,  1914-15. 

1912-15.     Member  of  the  Art  Commission  of  New  York  City. 

1 901.     Gold    Medal,    Fine   Arts   Department,    Pan-American 
Exposition. 

1904.     Gold  Medal,  World's  Fair,  St.  Louis. 

1914.     Gold  Medal,  Architectural  League,  New  York. 


xm 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  WHEEL  OF  LIFE 

Karl  Bitter — public  servant:  in  that  expression  may  be  sum- 
marized the  thought  of  the  several  speakers  who,  on  the  occasion 
of  an  open  session  held  on  a  May  evening  of  19 15,  tried  to  tell  a 
company  of  assembled  friends  what  they  considered  memorable 
in  the  life  of  the  man  whom  blind  Chance  had  struck  do^vn  in  his 
prime.  In  those  addresses,  largely  and  very  properly  a  roll  call 
of  achievements,  the  fact  was  recalled  that  Bitter  had  been  selected 
out  of  the  whole  body  of  American  sculptors  to  take  charge  of  the 
plastic  decoration  of  the  three  national  expositions  held  in  America 
in  the  period  of  his  manhood;  it  was  recounted  how  inspiringly  he 
had  served  the  National  Sculpture  Society  as  its  president;  and 
finally,  appreciative  mention  was  made  of  his  service  to  the  city 
of  New  York  as  a  member  of  its  Art  Commission.  Here  were 
tyipes  of  activity  which  identified  him  with  the  movement  of  art 
in  the  United  States  during  the  last  twenty  years;  more  than  \vith 
the  art  of  America,  they  identified  him  with  American  life.  Strange 
perhaps  at  first  glance  that  Bitter  should  have  come  to  stand  for 
so  much  of  what  was  characteristic  of  this  continent,  and  yet  not 
so  strange  after  all.  On  that  May  evening  Oswald  Garrison  Villard 
offered  an  interesting  explanation  of  the  profound  Americanism 
of  his  friend.  He  said :  "  Coming  from  abroad  with  fresh  eyes  that 
looked  beneath  the  surface,  Bitter  saw  and  felt  things  that  were 
veiled  to  the  multitude  born  to  Americanism";  and  Mr.  Villard 
drew  the  exultant  conclusion  that  America  must  be  fair  indeed 
since  she  bound  to  her  service  the  child  of  another  clime,  "filling 
his  heart  with  love  for  her  aims  and  inspiring  him  with  the  very- 
spirit  and  majesty  of  her  institutions." 

The  speaker's  words  uncover  the  problem  with  which  every 
biography  of  Karl  Bitter  will  have  to  concern  itself  from  the  out- 
set. This  American  public  servant,  between  whom  and  the  spirit 
of  America  there  was  an  intimate  exchange  of  thought,  a  sending 

I 


KARL     BITTER 

to  and  fro  of  whispered  messages,  was  not  a  son  of  the  soil.  Born 
in  Austria,  he  spent  twenty-one  years,  the  most  formative  of  his 
life,  in  his  Danubian  homeland.  Nor  does  that  dispose  of  the 
foreign  factor  in  his  career.  When,  as  the  result  of  a  tragic  chain 
of  circumstances,  he  found  himself,  an  exile  from  his  country,  adrift 
on  this  Western  continent,  he  did  not  hasten  to  throw  ofT  his 
Austrian  personality  like  a  threadbare  coat.  On  the  contrary, 
just  as  he  was,  with  the  sum  of  traits  handed  down  from  his  ancestors 
and  with  the  special  tendencies  and  preferences  absorbed  in  the 
artistic  circles  of  Vienna,  proudly  and  humbly  at  the  same  time,  he 
dedicated  himself  to  the  service  of  his  new  country.  And,  as  his 
life  was  to  prove,  in  this  fidelity  to  his  inheritance — another  form 
of  the  highest  of  all  fidelities,  the  fidelity  to  self — there  was  nothing 
that  quarreled  with  the  genius  of  the  community  with  which  he 
merged  his  fortunes.  For  to  him,  as  to  all  others  who  came  to 
seek  her  out,  free  America  threw  \vide  the  gates.  A  largeness  of 
spirit  that  scorns  to  chaffer  and  bargain  has  been  her  jmrticular 
glory  among  the  nations.  So  Mr.  Villard  affirmed  in  his  memorial 
address,  and  so  scores  of  other  sons,  the  poets  and  dreamers  who 
have  known  and  loved  her  best,  have  said  before  him.  And  since 
it  has  been  so  for  many  generations,  and  the  land  has  waxed  great 
because  it  has  been  great  of  heart,  may  it  stand  by  its  faith 
unperturbed  and  steadfast  to  the  end  of  time ! 

But  because  Bitter  came  to  America  a  grown  man,  shaped  amid 
other  influences,  the  story  of  his  life,  which  the  following  pages  will 
attempt  to  tell,  must  take  its  start  in  a  foreign  land.  Everything 
and  everybody  we  would  understand  and  make  our  own,  from  the 
grain  of  wheat  that  supports  our  existence  to  the  poet  or  artist  who 
strives  to  give  that  existence  a  spiritual  stamp,  must  be  patiently 
traced  to  the  wonder  of  their  faint  beginnings.  The  most  amazing 
thing,  as  we  go  back  to  the  youth  of  Karl  Bitter,  will  be  found 
to  be  how  closely  Bitter,  the  young  Austrian,  resembled  Bitter,  the 
mature  American.  The  child  is  father  of  the  man,  and  our  deepest 
impression,  as  we  proceed  to  take  up  the  unfolding  artist,  will  prove 
to  be  the  integrity  of  being  and  the  oneness  of  purpose  exhibited 
from  the  earliest  records  of  boyhood. 

2 


CHAPTER  II 

VIENNA 

Karl  Bitter  was  born  in  the  city  of  Vienna  on  December  6,  1867. 
His  parents  were  uncommonly  generous  in  the  matter  of  names  and 
had  him  entered  on  the  parish  register  as  Karl  Theodore  Francis. 
When,  however,  some  decades  later,  the  young  man  took  charge  of 
his  own  destiny,  he  cast  Theodore  Francis  overboard  as  superfluous 
flummery  and  was  content  to  play  his  role  in  life  simply  as  Karl. 

The  parents  belonged  to  the  trading  middle  class  and,  neither 
rich  nor  poor,  were  endowed  with  the  sum  of  habits  and  held  the 
familiar  vie\\point  characteristic  of  the  burgher  stock  which,  in 
every  European  country,  social  students  are  accustomed  to  celebrate 
as  the  backbone  of  the  nation.  Karl,  who  came  second  in  a  nursery 
row  of  three  children,  all  boys,  was  reared  with  careful  attention  to 
the  end  that  he  might  some  day  succeed  to  the  mild  but  solid  honors 
of  his  forbears  by  keeping  shop  like  them  or,  in  case  an  inscrutable 
Providence  endowed  him  with  the  necessary  headpiece,  by  following 
a  reputable  bread-winning  profession. 

The  boy's  mother,  a  faithful,  plodding  home-body,  brought  Karl 
up  in  the  Catholic  church  and  would  not  have  been  displeased  if  he 
had  turned  his  thoughts  to  the  priesthood.  But  that  idea,  if  she 
ever  seriously  entertained  it,  had  short  legs,  for  Karl  was  about 
thirteen  years  old  when  he  boldly  announced  one  day  that  the 
church  was  a  sham  and  that  he  had  attended  it  for  the  last  time. 
Perhaps  this  precocious  skepticism  came  to  him  from  his  father,  as 
his  father  was  a  Protestant  and  carried  a  faint  tinge  of  the  lawless 
spirit  of  adventure  into  the  staid  burgher  ranks  of  the  mother's 
family,  for  the  father  hailed  from  Baden  in  Southern  Germany  and 
had  come  to  Vienna  with  a  journeyman's  kit  on  his  back,  a  typical 
German  Watiderbursch  in  search  of  a  livelihood.  A  leaven  of 
ambition  in  him  made  him  hope  that  Karl  would  aim  high,  and  as 
the  boy  had  a  natural  gift  of  oratory  and,  spurred  by  his  lively 

3 


KARL     BITTER 

participation  in  the  events  about  him,  loved  to  exercise  it  on  the 
family  circle,  his  father  fixed  his  attention  on  the  law. 

But  the  father,  too,  was  destined  to  meet  with  disappointment. 
It  must  have  been  about  the  time  when  Karl  rebelled  so  unexpect- 
edly against  the  church  that  he  casually  announced  one  evening 
to  the  group  seated  imder  the  glow  of  the  dining-room  lamp  that 
he  was  going  to  be  an  artist.  An  artist!  To  the  simple  burgher 
mind  an  artist  is  a  man  with  an  unreasonable  passion  for  starvation, 
and  since,  as  far  as  the  family  records  were  available,  there  had 
never  appeared  any  such  dubious  member  of  the  human  race  in 
either  the  father's  or  the  mother's  line,  his  parents  wrung  their 
hands  and  wagged  their  tongues  in  vexed  astonishment  over  their 
son's  wayward  fancy.  Patiently  they  tried  to  reason  with  his 
folly,  and  as  they  reasoned  without  avail,  there  gradually  fell  upon 
the  growing  and  headstrong  boy  the  shadow  of  the  Black  Sheep. 

While  this  question  of  future  occupation  was  being  threshed 
out  in  the  family  circle,  Karl's  schooling  was  going  on  and  unfortu- 
nately its  developments  tended  to  confirm  the  doubts  concerning 
him  which  had  begun  to  beset  his  parents.  After  attending 
grammar  school  or  Volksschule  for  a  few  years,  the  boy  at  about 
the  age  of  ten  was  entered  at  the  Gymnasium^  or  high  school.  Now, 
the  main  feature  of  the  Gymnasium  course  was  Latin,  and  in  this 
subject  Karl,  in  spite  of  his  vmusual  alertness,  failed  to  distinguish 
himself.  Naturally  it  bore  out  the  parental  theory  that  there  was 
a  screw  loose  somewhere  when  the  boy,  rallied  at  home  for  his 
poor  showing,  explained  that  the  fault  lay  with  his  teacher,  who 
was  so  ugly  that  it  hurt  to  look  at  him !  What  had  facial  deformity 
to  do  with  such  solemn  things  as  duty  and  lessons  ?  demanded  the 
outraged  parents;  but  they  got  no  satisfaction  from  their  perverse 
offspring,  instinctive  and  pathetic  champion  of  the  very  unbourgeois 
faith  that  the  good  is  also  the  beautiful. 

For  these  and  similar  tribulations  of  existence  produced  by 
lack  of  sympathy  at  home,  he  presently  found,  after  the  fashion 
of  a  boy  artistically  endowed  by  nature,  a  magical  solace.  Not  far 
from  his  home  there  was  a  stoneyard,  where  for  hours  together  he 
used  to  watch  the  workmen  produce  the  figures  for  the  tombs  and 

4 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

shrines  of  their  CathoHc  neighbors.  It  was  fascination  enough 
merely  to  see  the  chips  fly  under  the  heavy  mallets,  but  to  observe 
a  saint  or  an  angel  slowly  disengage  himself  from  the  enveloping 
stone  was  to  assist  at  a  veritable  miracle.  One  day,  gulping  down 
his  fears,  he  stumblingly  asked  if  he  might  lend  a  hand,  and  imme- 
diately so  pleased  the  master  of  the  yard  with  his  eagerness  that 
he  was  good-naturedly  accepted  as  an  irregular  apprentice. 
Although  the  employment  was  for  a  time  successfully  concealed 
from  his  parents,  it  was  at  last  divulged,  as  is  bound  to  happen 
sooner  or  later  with  such  escapades,  and  naturally  precipitated 
another  family  storm. 

None  the  less,  in  the  end  a  distinct  benefit  resulted  from  the 
discovery  of  the  lad's  work  in  the  stoneyard,  for  the  father's  resid- 
uum of  common  sense  now  came  to  the  rescue  and  he  acknowledged 
the  uselessness  of  further  opposition  to  his  son's  bent.  To  Karl's 
great  relief  he  was  freed  from  the  necessity  of  continued  painful 
gazing  at  the  repulsive  visage  of  his  Latin  teacher  and  was  taken 
out  of  the  Gymnasium  to  be  entered  in  the  Kunslgewerbeschule,  the 
imperial  school  for  applied  arts.  From  this  he  passed,  as  soon  as 
his  years  permitted,  to  the  school  of  fine  arts,  the  Kunstakademie. 

From  1882  to  1887 — that  is,  from  the  age  of  fifteen  to  the 
age  of  twenty — young  Bitter  attended  successively  these  two  art 
schools  and  probably  experienced  as  keen  a  joy  as  has  ever  come  to 
a  lad  who,  long  thwarted  by  circumstances,  was  at  last  free  to 
follow  the  strong  set  of  his  being.  In  spite  of  the  parental  dis- 
approval which,  though  modified  in  its  expression,  remained 
fundamentally  unbroken,  he  now  saw  his  path  clear  before  him 
and  for  six  years  attended  his  classes  with  unflagging  devotion. 
It  is  on  record  that  by  no  means  all  of  his  teachers  were  pleased 
either  with  him  or  with  his  work.  The  old-fogey  sort,  identified 
with  the  pseudo-classical  tradition  of  Canova  and  Thorwaldsen, 
reprobated  a  tendency  in  him  to  disregard  their  solemn  preachments 
and  to  incline  a  favorable  ear  to  the  naturalist  message  just  then 
once  more  beginning  to  make  the  round  of  Europe.  But  luckily 
the  academy  at  Vienna  was  not  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the 
Philistines,  and  here  and  there  a  teacher  with  a  fresher  outlook 


KARL     B I T  T  E  R 

made  bold  to  encourage  the  independent  and  revolutionary  leanings 
of  his  talented  pupil. 

In  any  case,  whatever  the  teachers  thought  and  said,  the  virile 
element  among  the  student  body  greatly  admired  the  energetic  and 
indefatigable  Bitter  and  he,  receiving  and  transmitting  stimulus 
from  every  available  source,  was  a  center  of  thought  and  agitation, 
not  only  in  the  academy,  but  also  outside  its  walls.  For  around  the 
classrooms  roared  and  swirled  the  city,  the  merry  and  vivacious 
capital  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy,  and  a  person  of  the  keen  life- 
hunger  of  young  Bitter  was  not  likely  to  let  that  fact  pass  unnoticed. 

As  it  happened,  Vienna  was  just  then  undergoing  a  significant 
transformation  of  both  a  physical  and  a  moral  sort.  The  dawn  of 
a  new  era  had  hung  its  banner  in  the  sky,  and  the  old  city  by  the 
Danube,  rousing  itself  after  long  and  numbing  sleep,  made  ready  to 
throw  oflf  its  mediaeval  shackles  and  to  assume  the  ampler  and 
richer,  if  not  always  the  more  delicate,  garment  of  the  modern  age. 
The  ancient  town-wall,  which  had  twice  withstood  the  assault  of 
the  Turks,  was  razed;  the  grassy  moat  was  leveled  to  a  broad 
circular  boulevard,  the  famous  Ring;  and  the  sites  of  great  new 
public  buildings,  such  as  the  Parliament,  the  Opera  House,  the  Art 
Museum,  the  Burgtheater,  and  the  City  Hall,  were  surveyed  and 
staked  off  along  its  course.  In  response  to  so  sweeping  a  call 
architecture  came  to  vigorous  life,  and  sculpture  and  painting,  not 
to  be  left  behind,  joined  their  elder  sister  in  a  concerted  attempt  to 
effect  a  metropolitan  renovation  of  the  city.  Of  course  so  ancient 
a  town  had  an  important  body  of  artistic  traditions  which  would 
very  properly  make  themselves  felt  in  determining  the  new  move- 
ment. A  Viennese  barocco,  hailing  from  seventeenth-century  Italy, 
had,  it  is  true,  long  since  grown  feeble,  but  none  the  less  was  still 
the  most  important  single  factor  in  the  physical  aspect  of  the  city. 
Well  suited  to  an  expression  aiming  primarily  at  magnificence, 
the  barocco,  together  with  a  native  Gothic  style  much  older  than 
the  Italian  importation,  was  revived  and  the  whole  artist  world 
summoned  to  participate  in  the  adaptation  of  these  two  modes  of 
expression  to  the  peculiar  problems  of  a  nineteenth-century 
metropolis. 

6 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

The  sculptors  of  Vienna  did  not  remain  unconsulted  in  this 
building  program.  Their  active  participation  fell  in  with  the  plans 
of  the  architects  and,  in  keeping  with  the  lively,  exuberant  spirit 
which  prevailed,  they  designed  a  scries  of  extensive  decorations 
where  animated  groups  crowned  lofty  cornices  or  tumbled  in  head- 
long cascades  down  agitated  fronts.  For  plastic  enterprises  of 
such  scope  there  was  needed  the  co-operative  labor  of  many  hands 
working  under  responsible  direction.  Here  then  was  a  field  for  the 
pupils  of  the  academy  such  as  does  not  often  open  to  the  rising 
generation. 

It  was  as  an  obscure  assistant  in  the  decoration  of  the  great 
structures  of  the  Ring  that  young  Bitter  made  his  public  debut  as 
an  artist.  Of  course  it  was  apprentice-service,  as,  for  that  matter, 
was  the  case  with  much  of  the  plastic  output  in  the  halcyon  days 
of  such  famous  centers  as  Athens  and  Florence.  But  if  the  product 
of  Bitter  and  his  fellow-pupils  was  not  always  the  last  word  in  art, 
the  working  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  a  host  of  eager-eyed  young 
men  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  creating  an  atmosphere  of 
zest  and  emulation.  In  visiting  Vienna  in  after-years  Bitter  found 
much  amusement  in  walking  through  the  newer  sections  and 
pointing  with  his  cane  to  this  figure  or  that  group  as  corpora  delicti 
of  the  often  more  passionate  than  successful  pursuit  of  his  youthful 
ideals. 

But  if  we  may  dispense  with  a  detailed  consideration  of  the 
young  man's  artistic  contribution  to  the  Vienna  of  the  eighties, 
we  must  linger  on  two  abiding  effects  of  this  early  activity.  First, 
a  decorative  sense,  taking  account  of  the  latent  harmonies  among 
the  arts  and  particularly  as  between  sculpture  and  architecture, 
came  to  vigorous  life  in  him,  and  secondly,  a  feeling  asserted  itself 
that  the  art  he  followed  existed  less  for  its  own  sake  than  for  the 
living  community  of  men,  before  whom  it  unfolded  a  disinterested 
world  of  beauty  and  whom  it  served  perpetually  to  remind  of  ideals 
lifting  them  above  the  cramping  squabbles  of  the  shop  and  market- 
place. Doubtless  these  developments  were  stimulated  in  him 
because,  employed  on  great  public  enterprises,  he  was  more  or  less 
compelled  to  concern  himself,  not  only  with  the  purpose  of  art,  but 

7 


K  A  R  I-     BITTER 

also  with  the  purpose  of  life,  art's  counterpart.  Often  marooned 
on  a  wooden  scaffold  high  above  the  street  level,  it  was  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  he  should  let  his  thoughts  weave  to 
and  fro  between  the  composition  under  his  hand  and  the  busy 
community  beneath  his  feet.  What  was  he  to  these  streams  and 
ripples  of  traders  and  artisans  and  what  relation  did  they  and  their 
affairs  bear  to  his  art?  In  bygone  days,  among  the  mediaeval 
townsmen,  for  instance,  or  farther  back,  among  the  Greeks,  art 
had  been  a  community  function,  its  voice  reaching  rich  and  poor, 
the  high  and  low,  drowning  the  too  insistent  clamor  of  the  individual 
self  and  re-arousing  day  by  day  the  memor\'  of  a  common  good. 
Why  should  not  that  view  of  art  once  more  gain  currency  and 
art  become  a  sort  of  public  service,  as  securely  and  honorably 
established  in  the  esteem  of  men  as  the  bench,  the  pulpit,  and  the 
parliament  ? 

With  his  thoughts  following  such  highly  social  paths,  it  was 
natural  that  the  young  art  student  should  eagerly  seek  the  society 
of  his  fellow-men.  He  had  a  ranging  spirit  that  welcomed  every 
kind  of  experience  and  fervently  responded  to  the  touch  of  friend- 
ship. The  gay  apprentices,  who  during  the  day  worked  together 
in  the  life-class  of  the  academy  or  executed  some  public  commission 
under  the  orders  of  a  master,  met  again  at  night  around  the  oaken 
table  of  their  favorite  bohemian  restaurant  and  vigorously  discussed 
the  problems  of  their  art  and  all  the  clamorous  affairs  of  town  and 
nation.  Nights  and  suppers  of  the  gods !  Every  young  man  worth 
his  salt  has  passed  through  the  period,  and  who  shall  say  that  the 
contest  of  fiery  wits  is  not  at  least  as  educative  as  the  sage  and 
often  disillusioned  counsel  of  the  academy  professor  ?  In  later  life 
Bitter,  like  other  men  who  have  left  the  expansive  flutter  of  their 
student  days  behind  them,  used  to  look  back  regretfully  at  those 
meetings  where  the  wine  of  youth  bubbled  and  overflowed.  Falling 
into  a  muse,  he  would  wonder  what  had  become  of  the  companions 
who  nightly  with  him  stormed  Olympus.  Brave  fellows!  Many  of 
them  died  young;  others,  again,  foundered  and  went  down  miser- 
ably; a  few,  only  a  very  few,  reached  port — the  usual  story !  Bitter 
always  kept  faith  with  that  early  circle.     Semper  fidelis  was  a 

8 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

sentiment  which,  though  he  never  adopted  it  as  a  formal  watchword, 
sounded  a  deep-down  note  of  his  being.  He  never  failed,  therefore, 
to  respond  royally  whenever  one  or  another  of  his  early  associates 
came  across  the  sea  to  pay  him  a  visit  of  courtesy  or,  a  not 
infrequent  occurrence,  poor  and  ill  and  broken,  knocked  timidly 
at  his  door  for  help. 

Suddenly  this  promising  young  life,  or  at  least  its  outer  structure, 
had  a  heavy  hand  laid  on  it  and  fell  to  earth  like  a  house  of  cards. 
Bitter  was  now  twenty  years  old  and  in  accordance  with  the  law 
of  the  land  was  drafted  into  the  army.  His  friends  called  with  him 
to  the  colors  were  obliged,  like  professional  students  generally  in 
Austria  and  Germany,  to  serve  one  year,  but  he,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  left  the  Gymnasium  too  early  to  get  the  necessary 
certificate  attesting  his  professional  character,  was  obliged  to  serve 
three  years.  It  was  a  monstrous  imposition,  the  injustice  of  which 
was  recognized  even  by  the  public  authorities,  with  no  further 
result,  however,  than  a  helpless  shrug  of  the  shoulders.  Under  the 
circumstances  the  upshot  might  have  been  foreseen,  for,  given  the 
resolute  and  dedicated  spirit  of  the  artist,  it  was  inevitable.  Bitter 
served  one  year  with  the  colors  like  all  the  rest  of  his  student  circle; 
more  he  would  not.  That  one  year  was  in  itself  a  heavy  sacrifice 
with  its  perpetual  drill  and  its  enforced  estrangement  from  the 
studio.  Three  years,  he  knew  in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  would 
break  his  spirit.  Faced  with  destruction,  he  did  what  life-loving 
youth  will  always  do — he  resumed  command  of  his  destiny  and, 
renouncing  his  allegiance,  one  summer  day  made  his  way  across 
the  Austrian  border  into  Germany. 

Years  before  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  letting  his  impatient 
thoughts  roam  abroad,  and  more  particularly  toward  America, 
whenex'er  the  narrow  circumstances  of  the  burgher  world  about  him 
broke  him  with  their  bit  and  bridle.  As  to  thousands  of  other 
European  youths,  before  and  since,  America  seemed  as  an  Island 
of  the  Blest  where  happier  conditions  prevailed  than  those  which 
curved  men  beneath  the  yoke  in  their  ancient  home,  .\merica  the 
free  and  untrammeled,  the  virgin  country,  seemed  to  beckon  in  his 
dreams  so  that  a  longing  would  come  over  him  which,  before  he  had 

9 


KARL     BITTER 

left  the  Latin  school,  dropped  the  belief  into  his  soul  that  his  future 
was  cast  in  the  New  World.  When,  therefore,  on  that  critical  day, 
without  spoken  word  to  friends  or  parents,  he  bade  adieu  to  the  old 
city  lying  under  the  shadow  of  St.  Stephen's  tower,  he  knew  his 
goal  as  certainly  as  the  pilot  knows  his  port.  But,  half-crazed  b\' 
the  agony  of  the  immediate  crisis,  he  tried  to  hide  his  purpose  from 
himself  and  for  some  months  wandered  from  town  to  town  in 
Germany,  seeking  and  often  finding  work.  At  Berlin  at  last,  where 
the  mental  fog  lifted,  he  got  his  bearings.  The  question  now  was 
money.  A  former  Viennese  associate,  Rudolph  Schwarz  by  name, 
had  received  him  in  Berlin  with  open  arms  and  faithfully  shared 
his  quarters  with  him.  Schwarz  rose  to  the  situation  by  emptying 
his  purse  into  his  friend's  hand.  Then  at  the  railroad  station,  as 
a  final  act  of  devotion,  he  slipped  his  silver  watch  into  Bitter's 
pocket,  for  the  fugitive's  own  had  been  sacrificed  to  his  necessities 
long  before  he  reached  the  German  capital.  That  silver  watch 
Bitter  never  afterward  mentioned  without  emotion.  A  stuttered 
word,  a  swift  handshake,  and  the  train  pulled  out  of  the  thronged 
station  bound  for  Bremen  and  the  vast  Unknown. 

What  thousands  and  thousands  of  treasure-seekers  they  have 
carried  to  the  trans-Atlantic  Eldorado,  the  fateful  vessels  of  Europe, 
slipping  along  smoothly  under  white  sails  or  tearing  through  the 
waves  shaken  with  the  rumble  of  great  engines!  Owing  to  the 
generosity  of  his  friend,  Bitter  had  just  enough  money  to  pay  for  a 
passage  in  the  steerage  and  to  provide  for  his  first  wants  on  his 
arrival.  Through  the  long  days  and  often  through  the  night  he 
stood  at  one  spot  leaning  on  the  railing  of  the  ship  and  staring  out 
over  the  gray  wastes  of  water  which  rocked  and  climbed  and  showed 
their  white  teeth  as  if  to  swallow  him,  a  lonely,  desolate  soul  adrift 
upon  a  plank.  Then,  as  his  suffering  abated,  he  set  his  eyes  reso- 
lutely toward  the  western  sky.  And  one  day,  with  a  sob  that  was 
half  a  prayer,  he  sighted  the  Statue  of  Liberty.  On  November  22, 
1889,  he  set  foot  on  American  soil. 


10 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  LAND  OF  FREEDOM 

A  chance  observer  of  the  stream  of  immigrants  coming  down  the 
gangplank  of  the  S.S.  "Lahn"  could  not  have  failed  to  be  struck 
by  the  figure  of  a  young  man  who,  in  spite  of  a  heavy  pack,  moved 
along  with  an  elastic  step  and  with  lively,  fearless  eyes  took  in  the 
animated  scene  upon  the  wharf.  He  was  in  excess  of  six  feet  in 
height,  slender  but  strong  of  build,  with  a  curiously  mobile  face, 
deep  eyes  like  damped-down  fires,  and  an  abundance  of  dark,  almost 
southern,  hair.  The  hands  were  particularly  significant.  Large, 
hirsute,  and  sinewy,  they  showed  a  workman's  capacity  to  grasp  a 
tool  and  swing  a  hammer,  a  sledge  hammer  if  necessary,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  long,  sensitive  fingers  continuing  the  sinuous  lines 
of  the  palm  conveyed  the  impression  that  their  owner  was  of  a 
different  race  from  the  ordinary  craftsman.  He  was  directed  to  a 
sort  of  military  shed  where,  with  hundreds  of  other  immigrants 
dragging  a  miscellaneous  and  pathetic  luggage,  he  awaited  his  turn 
at  inspection.  After  what  seemed  an  endless  delay  he  was 
approached  by  a  slouch)',  blue-coated  official  who,  having  engaged 
in  a  little  cursor}'  sniffling,  threw  a  careless  thumb  in  the  direction 
of  the  door.  The  immigrant  had  been  waiting  for  that  sign. 
Jauntily  seizing  his  rough  pack,  he  s\vung  it  to  his  shoulder  and 
stepped  out  into  the  street. 

Sunshine  about  him  and  brisk,  sportive  winds — a  typical  late 
autumn  day.  He  made  his  way  across  Battery  Park  and  in  a 
moment  was  sucked  into  the  roaring  current  of  New  York's  central 
artery.  He  knew  no  soul  in  the  New  World,  had  no  line  to  friends 
or  friends  of  friends.  He  did  not  even  command  a  word  of  the  new 
language  that  from  all  sides  beat  upon  his  ear.  None  the  less,  an 
elation  rose  and  surged  within  him  in  great  waves  and  could  not  be 
controlled.  In  part  it  was  the  people,  who,  if  they  were  incurious 
of  the  stranger,  had  an  unmistakably  friendly  look  about  them; 

II 


KARL     BITTER 

in  part  it  was  the  high  buildings  with  their  majestic,  prosperous 
air;  but,  most  of  all,  it  was  the  inner  voice  whispering  that  the 
black  waters  had  receded  and  that  a  new  day  had  dawned  for  him 
upon  the  earth. 

Preoccupied  with  his  emotions,  he  had  walked  some  distance  up 
Broadway  before  he  remembered  that  he  had  a  plan.  A  bunk-mate 
on  the  ship  had  given  him  the  address  of  a  cheap  boarding-house, 
something  East  17th  Street.  Hurriedly  scratched  on  a  slip  of 
wrapping-paper  the  "17"  looked  and  was  read  by  him  as  "171." 
With  his  heavy  kit  weighed  down  less  by  his  few  articles  of  clothing 
than  by  the  tools  of  his  sculptor's  trade  and  his  precious  photo- 
graphs and  sketchbooks,  he  had  plugged  along  for  some  miles, 
apparently  without  drawing  nearer  to  his  goal.  At  last  with  a  sigh 
of  relief  he  reached  the  numbered  streets  and,  sturdily  persisting 
in  spite  of  weariness,  got  as  far  as  Madison  Square.  There  the 
hopelessness  of  his  pedestrian  undertaking  came  over  him  and  he 
ventured  to  show  his  soiled  scrap  of  paper  to  a  blue-coated  guardian 
of  the  traffic,  who,  with  a  scholarship  unusual  in  his  tribe,  promptly 
solved  the  crumpled  hieroglyph.  A  few  minutes  later  the  footsore 
traveler  rested  in  the  small  cubicle  of  an  ill-kept  hostelry  and 
pondered  his  next  step. 

At  that  moment,  if  the  most  grateful,  he  was  probably  also  the 
most  humble  inhabitant  of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  He  was 
ready,  therefore,  to  begin  life  in  his  new  environment  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ladder,  an  honest  worker  with  two  strong  hands.  That,  by 
his  unpretentious  standards,  seemed  the  proper  start.  Conse- 
quently with  the  aid  of  the  landlord  he  copied  out  of  the  city  direc- 
tory, a  list  of  decorative  establishments,  frankly  commercial  houses. 
During  these  preparations  the  evening  had  descended  and  he  was 
obliged  to  postpone  the  pursuit  of  his  fortunes  to  the  following  day. 
Locking  himself  up  with  a  httle  German-Enghsh  dictionary,  he 
spent  the  next  few  hours  memorizing  a  handy  stock  of  English  words 
and  phrases.  The  happy  sense  of  adventure  which  had  taken 
possession  of  him  when  his  foot  first  touched  the  pavements  of 
New  York  had  died  down  during  the  day,  but  still  stirred  beneath 
the  threshold  of  his  consciousness  like  distant  music.     As  he  lay 

12 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

down  to  sleep  the  music  mounted  from  the  depths,  breaking  over 
him  in  resistless  strength,  and,  prompt  as  always  to  translate 
emotion  into  action,  he  set  himself  three  objects  for  the  immediate 
future:  he  would  find  a  job,  an  honest  job  no  matter  what;  he 
would  learn  English;  and  as  a  small  return  for  the  helping  hand 
held  out  to  him,  a  homeless  refugee,  he  would  prepare  himseK 
without  delay  for  the  duties  of  citizenship,  nay,  account  himself, 
whatever  the  law  might  be,  a  true  and  loyal  subject  of  the  United 
States  from  that  hour. 

The  next  day  the  same  mellow  sunshine,  the  same  fresh  winds — 
a  happy  augury  of  continued  good  luck.  As  he  stepped  buoyantly 
down  the  street  he  became  aware  that  between  him  and  the  curving 
sky  there  was  a  secret  bond.  They  were  friends,  old  hearth-mates, 
confident  and  invincible.  At  the  first  address  at  which  he  knocked, 
something  of  this  personal  radiance  must  have  slipped  in  through 
the  chink  ahead  of  him,  for  he  had  already  been  grumpily  refused 
when  the  door  opened  anew  and  a  voice,  yielding  to  second  thoughts, 
bade  him  step  in.  Having  no  English,  he  let  his  photographs  and 
sketchbooks  speak  for  him.  Then  the  shop-boss  cut  short  further 
argument  by  pointing  to  an  angel  dimly  indicated  in  a  lump  of  clay. 
The  angel  was  to  be  somehow  squeezed  into  a  tympanum  and  had 
been  temporarily  put  to  one  side  because  no  one  in  the  shop  was 
equal  to  the  problem.  Swiftly  tossing  off  his  coat,  the  newcomer 
began  work  and  at  the  end  of  the  day  was  told  that  he  might  come 
again.  What  he  saw  about  him — the  kind  of  work  which  was 
under  way,  the  number  of  men  employed — informed  him  that  he 
had  stumbled  on  a  prosperous  firm  of  architectural  decorators. 

For  one  week  he  labored  energetically,  wondering  whether  or  no 
he  would  be  put  on  the  pay-roll.  Nothing  had  been  said  about 
money,  and  his  understanding  of  the  situation,  directed  by  his 
European  e.KjK'ricncc,  was  that  he  was  being  given  a  trial,  perhaps 
with,  j)erhaps  without,  reward.  When,  therefore,  after  si.\  days' 
labor,  he  was,  like  the  other  employees,  handed  a  mysterious  enve- 
lope, he  was  pleased  and  grateful.  Opening  it  timidly,  he  stood  as 
a  man  struck  dumb,  for  he  counted,  and  then  slowly  recounted  in 
order  to  make  sure,  forty-eight  dollars.     That  was  at  the  rate  of 

13 


K  A  R  T.     BITTER 

eight  dollars  a  day!  Seeking  out  the  shop-boss,  he  conveyed  to  him 
that  there  must  be  some  mistake,  and  had  to  have  the  statement 
repeated  twice  that  the  sum  was  correct  before  his  incredulity 
broke  down. 

Walking  slowly  to  his  hotel,  he  mounted  the  four  flights  of  stairs 
to  his  room  and  sat  for  a  long  time  staring  at  the  blank  wall.  WTien 
he  roused  himself,  he  was  holding  in  his  hand  the  silver  watch  given 
him  at  the  railway  station  at  Berlin.  That  night  he  wrote  two 
letters,  one  to  the  friend  who  had  sped  him  on  his  journey,  the 
second  to  his  parents  at  Vienna.  It  was  the  first  time  that  he 
had  permitted  his  thoughts  to  travel  back  over  the  Atlantic.  The 
day  he  had  landed  in  America  and  wandered  on  foot  up  Broadway 
he  had  imagined  that  he  would  wipe  the  past  entirely  from  his  mind 
and  begin  life  as  though  he  were  just  born  into  the  world.  The 
past  had  thrown  him  otT  and  he  would  throw  off  the  past.  But 
was  it  possible?  Life  after  all  is  one,  and  our  youth  is  with  us 
till  we  die.  There  were  sacred  and  permanent,  as  there  were 
slight  and  casual,  ties  among  those  woven  by  his  early  days,  and 
the  sacred  ones  he  could  no  more  renounce  than  he  could  slough 
off  his  personahty.  With  his  vigorous  and  disciplined  hands  he 
had  in  the  course  of  one  short  week  made  a  place  for  himself  in  a 
community  that  seemed  to  have  need  of  him.  His  self-respect, 
crushed  to  earth,  rose,  stretched  itself,  and  looked  about.  In 
his  two  letters  he  told  with  honest  pride  the  story  of  the  forty-eight 
dollars,  and  reached  out  his  hands  across  the  sea  to  draw  to  him 
what  was  his  inalienable  right  and  what  he  could  not  be  without, 
the  memories  of  home  and  friends,  precious  and  integral  elements 
of  life. 

The  letters  addressed  and  sealed,  he  stepped  down  to  the  office 
and  asked  to  see  the  landlord.  This  gentleman  was  a  nervous, 
sad-faced  individual  who  had  had  some  shattering  experiences  in 
his  day  and  was  not  given  to  repose  much  confidence  in  human 
nature.  In  an  access  of  distrust  he  had  that  very  afternoon  slipped 
an  itemized  memorandum  under  the  young  immigrant's  door.  The 
envelope  with  forty-eight  dollars  discreetly  displayed  by  his  taciturn 
and  perplexing  guest  seemed  to  shake  the  throne  of  his  reason.     He 

14 


J 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

took  his  head  in  both  his  hands  as  if  to  keep  it  from  flying  off  his 
shoulders;  then,  dashing  to  the  kitchen,  he  shouted  the  sum  to  his 
wife.  In  a  word,  the  good  man  was  beside  himself,  and  when  the 
young  stranger,  having  paid  his  bill,  turned  away,  the  amazed 
Boniface  ran  to  the  door  and,  opening  it  wide,  bowed  himself 
double. 

Out  in  the  street  the  young  sculptor,  yielding  to  the  suffused 
contentment  which  had  replaced  his  first  deep  emotion,  let  himself 
be  drawn  along  by  the  crowd.  Occasionally  he  looked  into  a 
lighted  window,  his  attention  caught  by  some  object  of  personal 
adornment  for  which  in  his  sudden  prosperity  he  imagined  he  would 
have  a  use;  in  the  main,  he  was  pleased  to  drift  and  indulge  a  sense 
of  fellowship  with  the  human  atoms  that  surged  around  him,  for 
an  instant  emerging  out  of  the  dark  and  as  swiftly  vanishing  again. 
These  were  his  new  countrymen  with  whom  he  was  going  to  associate 
himself  in  their  great  enterpri.se  of  building  up  a  community, 
politically  more  free,  more  respectful  of  labor,  and  more  devotedly 
turned  toward  the  realization  of  a  high  purpose  than  any  the  sun 
had  ever  shone  upon. 

Presently  he  found  himself  at  the  north  end  of  Madison  Square 
face  to  face  with  the  statue  of  Farragut.  Not  only  had  he  never 
observed  it  before,  but  he  had  no  idea  who  its  creator  was  and,  had 
he  known,  he  would  not  have  been  any  the  wiser.  He  stood  rooted. 
Then  slowly  he  walked  around  the  bronze  admiral  firmly  planted  on 
both  feet,  breasting  the  strong  sea-wind.  The  young  foreigner  had 
not  yet  seen  work  of  this  quality  in  America  and,  on  the  strength  of 
what  he  had  seen,  was  not  encouraged  to  indulge  in  great  expecta- 
tions. But  by  the  unimpeachable  testimony  of  this  monument 
the  Rejiublic  was  emerging  from  the  pioneer  stage  and  was  already 
engaged  in  proclaiming,  in  the  symbolic  language  of  art,  what  it 
thought  of  itself  and  the  world.  Artistically  more  stirred  than  at 
any  time  since  his  arrival,  he  sat  down  on  a  park  bench  whence  he 
could  sec  the  figure  stand  out  impressively  against  the  massed  glow 
of  the  arc-lights. 

The  better  to  think,  he  closed  his  eyes,  and,  suddenly  mounting 
from  nowhere,  a  longing  jerked  at  his  heart.     Would  not  someone 


KARL     BITTER 

tell  him  about  this  statue,  about  the  sculptor  who  made  it  and  the 
sea  captain  whom  it  represented  ?  Were  the  thousands  of  men  and 
women,  his  new  fellow-citizens,  who  surged  up  and  down  the  great 
thoroughfare  out  of  and  into  the  dark,  part  of  a  shadowy  panorama, 
to  which  his  heart  might  go  out  but  to  which  he,  the  spectator,  was 
of  as  little  concern  as  the  paving-stones  and  the  night  air?  If 
there  were  only  someone  of  whom  to  ask  questions,  someone  to 
whom  to  pour  out  his  feelings — if  he  only  had  someone  to  serve  as 
his  guide  among  the  mysteries  of  the  new  land!  And  suddenly  a 
memory  came  back  to  him  and  a  broad-shouldered,  slightly  stooped 
figure  stood  before  his  spiritual  vision. 

Three  days  before,  he  was  working  at  the  shop,  intent  on  an 
emaciated  saint,  when  he  became  aware  of  someone  subjecting  his 
work  to  a  close  scrutiny.  He  stuck  to  his  job  and  presently  heard 
a  voice  say  cheerily,  "Bravo,  young  man!"  On  wheeling  round, 
he  saw  a  vigorous,  elderly  gentleman  with  kindly  eyes  who  tried 
to  engage  him  in  conversation.  That  was  not  easy  owing  to  the 
barrier  of  language,  but  the  young  man  had  no  difficulty  in  clearly 
making  out  that  the  visitor  approved  of  both  him  and  his  work. 
As  soon  as  the  stranger  had  departed,  the  shop  was  agog  with 
excitement.  The  whole  force  gathered  round  the  young  Viennese 
shouting  and  gesticulating.  Didn't  he  understand  ?  That  was 
the  architect  who  gave  more  work  to  the  shop  than  all  the  other 
architects  of  New  York  put  together!  A  very  great  man!  And 
he  had  praised  the  newcomer,  had  said  in  everyone's  hearing  that 
his  figures  were  the  only  ones  in  the  whole  place  with  any  touch  of 
distinction.  And  behold  a  miracle!  The  saints  and  angels 
which  had  hardly  been  noticed  before  were  now  examined  from 
every  angle  and  greeted  with  praise.  Of  course  their  creator  was 
pleased,  but  better  than  the  applause  of  his  shopmates  was  the 
abiding  impression  of  a  pair  of  friendly  eyes.  Something  had 
flashed  from  them,  a  warming  flame,  that  made  the  young  man  feel 
sure  that  he  had  been  brought  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  most 
notable  embodiments  of  this  New  World  of  the  West.  And, 
source  of  a  more  subtle  delight,  deep  down  he  was  conscious, 
although  he  would  have  blushed  to  put  it  in  words,  that  this  rare 

i6 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

American,  as  manifestly  an  artist  as  he  was  a  gentleman,  possessed 
a  spiritual  substance  to  which  he  felt  himself  akin. 

Sitting  in  the  darkened  city  square  ringed  round  with  a  bright 
electric  glow,  he  summoned  the  studio  scene  before  him  and  won- 
dered whether  he  would  ever  see  that  benign,  manly  face  again.  It 
promised  light  and  guidance  as  no  face  that  he  had  ever  met.  Ever 
since  arriving  in  America  he  had  gloried  in  the  independence  of  the 
pioneer  who  alone  and  unaided  faces  the  Unknown.  The  world 
was  the  prize  of  the  strong  and  resolute ;  life  was  a  cup  to  seize  and 
drink !  But  tonight  in  the  face  of  the  indifferent  multitude  gliding 
by  and  of  the  eloquent  but  uncomprehended  statue,  his  strong  will 
had  ebbed  and  left  him  weak  and  helpless.  He  was  a  child  again, 
longing  with  all  the  passion  of  a  child  for  the  hand  and  voice  of  a 
friend. 

The  next  morning  both  the  exaltation  and  the  depression  of 
the  night  before  had  evaporated,  and  with  the  rising  sun  life  assumed 
its  familiar,  workaday  aspect.  For  a  few  days  there  was  so  much 
to  do  at  the  shop  that  the  young  sculptor  kept  his  thoughts  glued 
to  his  task.  None  the  less,  so  often  did  his  mind  stray  involuntarily 
toward  the  architect  that  it  was  with  an  almost  guilty  shock  that 
he  saw  the  door  open  one  afternoon  and  admit  the  object  of  his 
musings  into  the  studio.  The  visitor  made  straight  for  the  young 
Viennese  and,  after  a  renewed  inspection  of  his  work,  asked  for  a 
private  interview.  As  it  was  near  closing-time  the  young  man 
took  hat  and  coat  and  walked  down  the  street  beside  his  new-found 
friend.  In  a  kind  of  daze  he  heard  the  question:  How  would  he 
like  to  work  for  himself  in  his  own  studio  ?  Let  him  think  it  ov'er 
for  the  next  few  days.  At  any  rate,  the  famous  builder  did  not 
hesitate  to  urge  him  to  set  up  for  himself,  promising,  in  case  he  did 
so,  to  intrust  him  with  the  interior  decorations  of  a  great  Fifth 
Avenue  mansion  in  process  of  erection.  Although  the  older  man 
in  his  elTort  to  make  himself  understood  used  only  the  simplest 
English  words,  it  was  long  before  his  meaning  penetrated  his 
companion.  Abruptly,  to  hide  his  great  emotion,  the  young  man 
wheeled  about  and  with  a  hurried  adieu  disappeared  down  the 
street. 

17 


KARL     BITTER 

Behold  him  now  estabhshed  in  his  first  studio,  a  small  and  rather 
bohemian  affair  on  the  East  Side  of  the  city.  Here,  left  to  his  own 
devices,  he  planned  and  labored  at  the  orders  of  his  generous  patron. 
He  had  traveled  fast  since  his  arrival,  so  fast  that  his  confidence 
was  active  and  abundant.  But  at  times,  like  every  conscientious 
workman  with  unsatisfied  ideals,  he  was  visited  by  heavy  doubts. 
They  rose  like  a  dark  cloud  threatening  to  overwhelm  him  when  he 
took  in  hand  his  first  independent  commission  on  a  large  scale. 
This  was  a  panel  with  numerous  figures  for  the  ballroom  of  the 
mansion  for  which  he  had  already  done  such  minor  parts  as  moldings 
and  cornices.  He  worked  at  the  design  with  even  more  than  his 
usual  energy,  but  could  not  somehow  realize  his  idea.  When  the 
architect  sent  word  that  he  would  appear  early  the  next  morning 
to  inspect  the  sketch,  a  panic  seized  him.  He  sat  up  all  night 
and  at  last  fell  asleep  over  his  drawing-board  with  the  crushing 
consciousness  that  he  had  failed. 

He  was  awakened  by  a  knock,  and,  before  he  could  rise  from  his 
chair,  in  stepped  the  man  who  had  been  to  him,  the  homeless 
stranger,  the  bibhcal  angel  of  mercy.  Pausing  at  the  door,  he  took 
in  the  scene  with  a  smile:  the  crumpled  hair,  the  sleep-ringed  eyes, 
the  darkened  room  with  the  sunlight  pouring  through  the  curtain 
cracks.  He  turned  to  the  drawing-board  and  with  characteristic 
deUberation  looked  over  the  sketch  of  the  ballroom  panel.  Excel- 
lent, but  more  than  a  trifle  bold!  One  figure  in  particular — he  put 
a  determined  finger  on  it — struck  him  as  tortuous  and  impossible. 
The  next  moment  the  young  man  had  scaled  a  ladder  and  from  its 
topmost  rung  lightly  and  gracefully  assumed  the  position  of  the 
sketch.  The  amused  visitor  laughed  aloud  and,  admitting  his 
error,  generously  gave  his  unstinted  praise  to  the  whole  design. 

The  profound  inner  relief  produced  by  the  hearty  approval  of 
a  sketch  which  he  had  been  convinced  was  a  total  failure  caused  the 
reticence  so  far  observed  toward  his  patron  suddenly  and  completely 
to  break  down.  He  had  treated  him  since  their  acquaintance  as 
a  kind  of  earthly  Providence  to  be  approached  with  reverent  feet 
and  bowed  head.  Something  now  moved  him  abruptly  to  speak 
out,  and  as  best  he  could,  in  broken,  ungrammatical  sentences,  he 

i8 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

poured  forth  his  long-pent  emotion.  The  old  man  listened  with 
close  attention.  Gravely  taking  a  seat,  he  pointed  to  another  at 
his  side.  From  his  finely  chiseled,  immobile  face  it  was  difficult 
to  make  out  whether  or  no  he  was  pleased  with  his  admirer.  But 
the  young  man  trusted  his  instinct  and  having  conquered  his  first 
embarrassment  frankly  unburdened  his  spirit.  He  spoke  above  all 
of  America,  trying  to  convey  his  gratitude  toward  this  wonderful 
Land  of  the  Open  Door  that  had  raised  him  from  the  abyss  and 
trusted  him  with  work.  Of  that  America  he  saw  in  his  benefactor 
the  embodied  spokesman  to  whom  he  might  appropriately  pledge 
his  heart's  devotion.  And  in  the  rush  of  his  feelings  he  told  how 
on  his  first  night  on  Western  soil,  after  walking  all  the  way  up 
Broadway  with  an  immigrant's  kit,  he  had  gone  to  sleep  with  the 
citizen's  vow  on  his  lips.  His  most  ardent  wish  at  present  was 
to  take  the  legal  steps  necessary  to  prepare  his  absorption  into  the 
United  States. 

There  was  no  misunderstanding  the  pure  passion  of  the  dark- 
eyed  and  gesticulating  foreigner.  Sitting  at  his  side,  the  archi- 
tect gently  gave  him  the  desired  information.  Then  reading  the 
longing  in  the  young  man's  eyes  and  exercising  the  authority 
conferred  on  him  by  faith,  he  held  out  his  hand.  "You  are 
welcome,"  he  said  simply;  "from  this  day  you  shall  be  one  of  us." 

No  admission  to  American  citizenship  conducted  before  a  court 
of  law  was  ever  carried  through  more  reverently  than  this  informal 
act.  The  young  stranger  almost  felt  the  chrism  on  his  brow. 
After  all,  life  had  been  passing  kind.  Here  he  was  in  his  own 
workshop  with  more  than  enough  to  do,  and  here  was  a  large- 
hearted  counselor  who  not  only  led  him  by  the  hand  through  the 
maze  of  the  New  World,  but  also  listened  patiently  to  his  youthful 
confessions.  WTien  he  turned  to  take  up  the  work  of  the  day  it 
was  as  if  the  air  resounded  with  large  chords  such  as  the  harpist 
strikes  from  his  charmed  instrument.  From  a  boy  he  had  always 
heard  these  chords  in  moments  of  glad  uplift.  Today  they 
signified  his  union  with  the  great  community  where  he  had  found 
a  home. 


19 


CHAPTER  IV 
STRUGGLE  AND  SUCCESS  IN  THE  NEW  WORLD 

Karl  Bitter's  first  studio  was  on  East  Thirteenth  Street,  and  the 
architect  to  whom  he  owed  his  start  was  Richard  M.  Hunt. 

In  these  swift-moving  days  when  the  greatest  reputations  pale 
with  alarming  rapidity,  it  is  not  easy  to  be  just  to  the  leader  of 
yesterday.  During  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  centur>'  Hunt 
was  undoubtedly  a  pre-eminent  figure  among  New  York  architects. 
Of  course  he  owed  his  professional  authority  to  his  work,  to  the 
imposing  catalogue  of  his  achievements,  but  the  love  and  respect 
which  he  enjoyed  in  such  ample  measure  throughout  the  city  came 
to  him  from  his  attractive  personal  qualities,  his  vigorous  manhood, 
his  great  refinement,  and  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  beauty  and 
the  arts.  His  training  in  Paris  in  the  period  of  the  sumptuous 
transformation  of  that  capital  under  the  third  Napoleon  had  given 
him  a  leaning  toward  expressive  decorative  work  derived  from,  and 
in  keeping  with,  the  traditions  of  the  Renaissance.  Accordingly 
nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  the  fluid  line  and  lively  gesture 
of  young  Bitter's  work  should  catch  his  fancy.  Hunt's  structures, 
when  he  was  left  a  free  hand,  called  for  decoration  which  he  would 
wish  to  make  abundant  but  which  he  usually  was  obliged  to  reduce 
to  a  regretful  minimum  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  getting  work  of 
the  right  quality.  Bitter's  training  and  practice  in  Vienna  had 
turned  him  out  the  very  kind  of  craftsman  the  architect  had  looked 
for  throughout  his  life  but  had  only  rarely  found.  Enthusiastically, 
therefore,  and,  in  spite  of  years  and  honors,  without  the  least  con- 
descension, he  held  out  a  hand  to  the  groping  foreigner,  promising, 
if  his  product  proved  satisfactory,  to  engage  him  on  decorative 
commissions  almost  indefinitely.  As  an  earnest  he  started  him 
on  the  interior  of  a  great  house  on  Fifth  Avenue.  It  was  an  artistic 
partnership,  though  naturally  the  grateful  and  inexperienced  new- 
comer was  much  less  a  partner  than  a  protege. 

20 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

The  situation  of  American  sculpture  at  the  moment  when  Bitter 
thus  auspiciously  began  his  career  was  an  interesting  one.  If  the 
sculptural  production  of  the  United  States  during  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  negligible,  since  the  Civil  War  and  more 
particularly  since  the  Centennial  Exposition  of  1876  rapid  and 
gratifying  progress  had  been  made.  By  1890  J.  Q.  A.  Ward,  the 
first  native  son  fairly  to  emancipate  himself  from  foreign  tutelage, 
had  done  some  of  his  best  work,  such  as  his  Pilgrim,  his  Garfield,  and 
his  General  Thomas;  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens  was  proudly  sweep- 
ing to  his  zenith,  and  in  his  Farragut  in  New  York  and  his  Lincoln 
in  Chicago  had  sounded  a  note  of  incalculable  inspiration;  and  a 
whole  flight  of  young  masters,  led  by  Daniel  Chester  French, 
Frederick  MacMonnies,  and  Herbert  Adams,  had  just  given  evi- 
dence, or  else  were  on  the  point  of  giving  evidence,  that  sculpture 
had  emerged  from  the  experimental  stage  and  was  ready  to  take 
the  waters  as  a  proud,  majestic  craft  propelled  by  its  own  power. 

It  was  almost  as  if,  skipping  the  uncertainties  of  adolescence, 
American  sculpture  had  arrived  at  a  single  bound  at  man's  estate. 
But  undoubtedly  this  rapid  evolution  had  its  drawbacks.  Excelling 
in  heroic  statuary,  nay,  almost  exclusively  concerned  with  it,  the 
native  art  showed  the  absence  of  many  of  the  features  which  at- 
tended its  more  deliberate  growth  in  older  countries.  Thus,  to 
linger  on  one  difference  only,  everywhere  in  Europe  sculpture  had 
come  into  existence  in  close  dependence  on  architecture  and  for 
generations — and  very  productive  generations,  as  it  happens — had 
been  content  to  serve  its  elder  sister.  Even  after  achieving  inde- 
pendence in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance,  a  considerable  group  of 
architectural  sculptors  continued  to  cultivate  the  old  intimacy. 
Now  this  traditional  European  group  was  as  good  as  lacking  in 
America,  its  absence  being  a  source  of  regret  to  many  architects 
and  explaining  why  a  man  with  the  program  and  taste  of  Hunt 
often  felt  himself  seriously  handicapped  in  his  profession.  No 
wonder  that  the  architectural  quality  in  Bitter's  work  immediately 
caught  Hunt's  eye  and  suggested  a  line  of  endeavor  along  which 
the  young  man,  while  serving  his  patron,  might  win  notable  distinc- 
tion for  himself. 

21 


KARL     BITTER 

As  luck  would  have  it,  at  this  very  juncture  the  whole  country 
joined  Hunt  in  pushing  Bitter's  fortunes  by  engaging  in  a  national 
enterprise  which  in  its  artistic  features  was  unique.  The  Republic 
had  decided  to  hold  a  vast  exposition  in  Chicago  in  1893  in  order 
to  celebrate  the  four-hundredth  anniversary  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  and  the  plans,  prepared  by  the  most  enterprising  spirits 
of  the  nation,  called  for  a  co-operative  effort  of  the  whole  artist 
world,  that  is,  of  America's  leading  architects,  sculptors,  and 
painters.  As  soon  as  the  project  was  revealed,  architectural  and 
decorative  sculpture,  too  much  neglected  in  the  past,  rose  to  a 
sudden  premium.  Many  of  the  older  men  did  not  scorn  to  recast 
their  artistic  creed  and  lend  a  hand  in  the  common  work,  but  chiefly 
the  younger  men,  many  of  them  of  foreign  birth  and  because  of  this 
fact  familiar  with  the  decorative  field,  heard  the  call  of  opportunity 
and  responded  with  alacrity.  In  the  distribution  of  buildings 
Richard  M.  Hunt  owed  to  his  great  name  a  most  important  commis- 
sion, the  Administration  Building  at  the  head  of  the  Court  of  Honor. 
He  immediately  consulted  with  Bitter,  accepted  from  his  hands  a 
decorative  program  on  a  scale  very  unusual  in  America,  and  in  the 
next  few  years  the  two  men  worked  out  a  monument  destined  to 
make  their  linked  names  heard  far  and  wide.  The  Chicago  World's 
Fair  not  only  gave  American  decorative  sculpture  the  impulse  and 
momentum  which  have  lasted  to  our  own  day,  but  it  also  established 
the  young  Austrian  as  one  of  the  pioneers  and  guides  of  the  move- 
ment. 

But  before  proceeding  farther  with  the  Columbian  Exposition 
it  is  necessary  to  note  that  long  before  the  plans  for  the  Administra- 
tion Building  were  complete.  Bitter's  name  had  been  projected  into 
the  art  circles  of  New  York  in  a  very  dramatic  way.  John  Jacob 
Astor  had  left  on  his  death  a  bequest  for  three  bronze  gates  to  adorn 
the  oldest,  or  at  least  the  most  famous,  of  New  York  churches, 
Trinity  Church  on  Lower  Broadway.  The  matter  was  put  in 
charge  of  Richard  Hunt,  who  resolved  to  institute  a  competition 
open  to  the  whole  body  of  American  sculptors.  The  subject  given 
out  was  the  representation  in  relief  of  the  expulsion  from  paradise. 
Seeing  an  announcement  of  the  competition  in  a  newspaper,  Bitter 

22 


A     B  I  0  G  R  A  ]•  II  V 

resolved  to  take  his  chances  with  the  rest  of  the  contestants,  and 
in  March,  1891,  the  committee  announced  that  the  gate  fronting 
on  Broadway,  the  most  important  of  the  three,  was  awarded  to  the 
young  Viennese.  He  had  been  in  America  sixteen  months  and  was 
the  youngest  of  the  competitors,  being  but  twenty-three  years  old! 
These  rather  startling  circumstances  did  not,  as  may  be  imagined, 
diminish  the  stir  which  the  news  of  the  victory  produced. 

The  winning  panel  told  the  story  of  the  expulsion  of  Adam  and 
Eve  from  paradise  and  was,  though  with  very  substantial  changes, 
incorporated  in  the  completed  work.  This,  owing  to  the  clamorous 
intrusion  of  the  World's  Fair,  was  not  ready  and  swung  in  place 
till  three  years  later  (1894),  but  since  the  commission  was  never  out 
of  Bitter's  mind  and  occupied  him  more  or  less  throughout  the 
period,  we  may  as  well  consider  it  at  this  point. 

It  is  certain  that  no  bronze  gate  has  been  cast  for  a  Christian 
church  in  the  last  few  centuries  without  more  or  less  conscious  imi- 
tation of  Ghiberti's  two  masterpieces  adorning  the  Baptistery  at 
Florence.  It  may  therefore  be  admitted  at  the  outset  that  both 
in  technique  and  design  Bitter  was  affected  by  the  Italian  master. 
None  the  less  his  independence  and  self-assertion,  especially  in  \-iew 
of  his  youth,  remain  extraordinary.  The  sculptor  of  the  Trinity 
gate  is  a  definite  personality  who  never  descends  to  mere  slavish 
imitation  and  who  shows  surprising  versatility  by  succeeding  in 
delicate  relief  work,  though  it  was  attempted  by  him  in  this  gate 
for  the  first  time  and  after  an  apprenticeship  devoted  exclusively 
to  decorative  and  monumental  figures.  Characteristic  decorative 
quality  the  gate  certainly  has,  but  it  also  shows,  in  some  if  not  in 
all  of  the  parts,  painstaking  and  loving  modeling,  and  thereby  fore- 
shadows possibilities  which  were  not  fully  realized  by  the  artist  till 
a  much  later  time. 

The  Trinity  gate,  practically  rectangular  in  shape,  consists  of 
two  doors  opening  in  the  middle.  Each  door  bears  three  panels 
in  low  and  high  relief  measuring  three  feet  and  a  half  in  width  by 
two  feet  and  a  half  in  height.  The  panels  arc  framed  in  animated 
wreaths  of  heads  and  figures,  delicate  work  not  in  relief  but  in  the 
round.     Above  the  gate  a  tympanum  in  stone  shows  Christ  in 

23 


KARL     BITTER 

glory,  having  at  his  feet  in  Gothic  niches  the  twelve  apostles.  The 
six  panels  in  relief  chiefly  claim  the  attention  of  the  spectator,  and 
of  the  six  the  one  depicting  the  Annunciation  is  perhaps  the  best. 
Certainly  it  is  the  simplest  in  design,  and  simplicity,  in  view  of  the 
almost  miniature  nature  of  such  work  as  this,  is  a  desideratum 
never  to  be  too  much  emphasized.  Bitter  himself  certainly  gave 
preference  to  the  Annunciation  and  regretted  that  most  of  the  sub- 
jects, which,  being  assigned  to  him  by  a  supervising  committee  of 
the  church,  were  not  of  his  choosing,  hardly  admitted  of  a  simple 
solution.  Nevertheless,  the  panels,  generally  speaking,  show  a 
courageous  initiative,  and  the  most  elaborate  of  all,  the  Worship 
of  the  Elders,  possesses  with  its  sweeping  circle  of  saints  a  fine, 
ceremonial  impressiveness. 

Of  course  the  town,  on  the  unveiling  of  the  gate,  did  not  rock 
on  its  foundations,  though  numerous  journalist  commentators  set 
up  a  famihar  clacking.  "Fully  equal  to  the  Ghiberti  gates  and  to 
the  Randolph  Rogers  doors  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington,"  wrote 
a  glib  critic  less  conspicuous  for  sound  judgment  than  for  unrelated 
information,  while  a  stodgy  Philadelphian,  very  scornful  of  every- 
thing he  saw  in  New  York  postdating  the  good  old  colony  days,  con- 
fided to  a  home  newspaper  that  a  single  glance  at  the  new  Trinity 
ornament  convinced  him  that  "the  veriest  tyro  could  do  better." 
After  some  twenty  years  we  may  judge  the  work  less  sweepingly. 
Neither  a  Ghibertian  masterpiece  nor  the  handiwork  of  a  dilettante, 
it  is  the  honest  first-fruits  of  a  youthful  talent  sure  to  reach  con- 
siderable heights,  provided  it  chastens  itself  by  tireless  work  and 
faithfully  pursues  its  vision. 

Meanwhile  the  Chicago  Fair  had  come  and  gone  and  Bitter  had 
furthered  his  reputation  in  connection  with  the  Administration 
Building.  The  first  bewildering  impression  which  that  structure 
left  on  the  observer  was  that  here  was  an  amount  of  sculpture  such 
as  had  probably  never  before  been  associated  with  any  earthly 
enterprise.  Countless  single  figures  as  well  as  groups  ranging  from 
heroic  to  colossal  size  occupied  every  bit  of  available  space  and  left 
the  visitor  to  the  Exposition  gasping  over  the  sheer  energy  that  had 
willed  this  brood  of  Titans  into  existence  and  swung  them  to  their 

24 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

airy  pedestals.  But  a  more  deliberate  inspection  greatly  reduced 
the  first  bewilderment  and  showed  that  these  men  and  women,  com- 
posed of  an  ephemeral  material  called  staff,  had  each  one  his  proper 
place  and  contributed  to  the  general  architectural  effect.  The  fact 
is  that  Hunt  with  the  aid  of  Bitter  had  succeeded  in  doing  something 
of  which  he  had  often  dreamed.  He  raised  a  building  of  two  stories 
crowned  by  a  dome  plain  to  austerity  in  architectural  line.  But  this 
line  was  so  softened  and  the  sharp  transitions  from  story  to  story 
were  so  modified  by  means  of  statuary,  that  the  building,  fairly 
swathed,  one  may  say,  in  sculpture,  constituted  one  of  the  most 
unified  and  rhythmic  elements  of  the  whole  Exposition.  If  this 
was  decorative  sculpture,  it  was  also  more  than  that,  as  the  figures 
were  not  merely  ornamental,  but  directly  functional.  Doubtless 
it  was  this  circumstance  that  drew  the  marked  attention  of  profes- 
sional observers.  Decorative  sculpture  was  a  thing  that  flourished 
everywhere  throughout  the  Exposition  grounds,  but  here  was  archi- 
tectural sculpture,  and  it  may  be  asserted  that  this  branch  of  the 
glyptic  art  made  nowhere  a  more  convincing  demonstration  of  its 
power  than  in  the  Administration  Building. 

Of  course  this  comprehensive  show  of  Bitter's  art  was  to  be 
judged  only  by  the  festival  standards  of  an  ephemeral  occasion. 
Delicacy  and  finish  were  suited  neither  to  the  place  nor  to  the 
material  and  were  not  present.  But  the  great  groups,  though  func- 
tioning ])rimarily  as  architecture,  were  also  planned  to  unfold  a 
significance  of  their  own.  They  told  the  tale  of  man's  progress  from 
savagery  to  civilization.  There,  for  example,  was  Fire  Uncon- 
trolled contrasted  with  a  group  representing  Eire  Controlled,  and 
so  on  through  the  remaining  elements  of  Water,  Air,  and  Earth. 
They  showed  thought  and  fancy,  these  \'arious  compositions,  but 
the  thought  and  fancy  had  their  root  in  the  exuberance  of  youth 
rather  than  in  the  ordered  reflection  of  a  profound  philosophy,  and 
Bitter  himself  was  wholly  pleased  when  his  groups,  after  making  a 
brave  show  through  a  summer  season,  were  "scrapped"  together 
with  the  other  seven-day  wonders  of  the  brilliant  White  City, 
the  first  dream  ever  dreamt  by  grubbing,  materialist  Chicago, 
chiefly   known    till    the   days   of   the   Fair — to  quote   the   biting 

25 


KARL     BITTER 

apostrophe  of  one  of  her  own  poets — as  "hog-butcher  for  the 
world." 

From  now  on  Bitter  was  in  great  demand  by  architects,  who 
brought  him  all  the  orders  he  could  fill.  In  the  years  following  the 
World's  Fair  much  of  his  time  was  occupied  with  work  for  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Station  in  Philadelphia."  A  pediment  in 
terra  cotta  over  the  main  entrance  attracted  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion by  reason  of  the  same  originality  of  thought  and  boldness  of 
execution  which  had  characterized  the  "element"  groups  at  Chicago. 
It  represented  Fire  and  Water  tamed  and  harnessed  to  the  service 
of  Man— certainly  a  theme  eminently  appropriate  to  a  railway 
station — while  an  enormous  panel  in  the  w^aiting-room  treated  of 
Transportation  in  historical  perspective.  Allegory  had  not  pros- 
pered greatly  in  America,  perhaps  because  its  didactic  generaliza- 
tions create  something  of  distaste  in  an  impatient,  practical  people 
like  ourselves,  and  if  these  allegories  of  Bitter's  made  a  great  deal 
of  a  stir  when  they  were  placed,  it  was  due  to  their  sheer  novelty 
rather  than  to  the  pleased  response  of  the  national  spirit.  But  even 
the  novelty  did  not  last  long,  because,  if  the  truth  be  told,  the 
allegories  lacked  intrinsic  worth.  They  were  unmistakably  youth- 
ful, an  experiment  rather  than  a  last  word,  and  the  progress  of  art 
before  long  overtook  them  as  did  Bitter  himself. 

As  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  name,  much  less  to  consider  in 
detail,  the  numerous  works  turned  out  by  Bitter  in  the  period  fol- 
lowing the  Chicago  Fair,  we  must  content  ourselves  with  selection, 
and  proceeding  on  this  plan  we  will  group  together  certain  com- 
missions executed  for  the  winter  residences  and  summer  villas  called 
forth  in  generous  abundance  by  that  era  of  industrial  expansion. 
These  commissions  came  to  him  through  Hunt  and  other  architects 
attracted  to  his  work  and  belonged  decidedly  to  the  realm  of  decora- 
tion. What  gave  them  their  vogue — and  they  had  a  great  deal  of 
vogue— was  a  certain  "go"  manifested  in  a  fluid  silhouette  and  a 
swift  impressionist  execution.     We  may  think  of  them  as  youthful 

■  To  give  an  idea  of  the  amount  of  this  work  for  the  Pennsylvania  station  I  shall  list  the 
separate  objects:  pediment  in  terra  cotta  (50  feet  in  length),  panel  in  waiting-room  {30  feet 
in  length),  two  heroic  figures  supporting  clock,  two  smaller  pediments,  ten  panels  celebrating 
each  one  an  event  in  the  history  of  an  important  city  along  the  Pennsylvania  Lines. 

26 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

work,  in  a  sense  even  as  commercial  work,  on  the  understanding 
that  they  were  never  mercenary,  for  Bitter  carried  through  even 
this  somewhat  wholesale  production,  much  of  it  in  the  light  vein  of 
pure  entertainment,  with  scrupulous  artistic  honesty.  The  best 
of  it  is  housed  by  Biltmore,  the  great  North  Carolina  mansion  of 
G.  W.  Vanderbilt.  Here,  under  the  encouraging  eyes  of  a  modern 
Maecenas,  the  young  man  executed,  in  addition  to  an  assortment 
of  friezes  in  stone  and  oak,  a  number  of  things  which  o"wed  their 
very  considerable  effect  to  a  combination  of  inner  vigor  and  envi- 
ronmental atmosphere.  Among  them  figure  a  pair  of  andirons, 
a  fountain  group  representing  a  boy  stealing  geese,  and  two  medi- 
aeval warrior-saints,  St.  Louis  and  Joan  of  Arc.  These  several  pro- 
ductions not  only  show  the  delicacy  of  touch  and  spirit  which  the 
artist  was  able  to  communicate  whenever  he  considered  that  the 
problem  demanded  them,  but  they  also  exhibit  a  wide  range  of 
artistic  inspiration,  for  the  andirons  suggest  Cellini  and  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  the  two  French  saints  have  a  distinct  mediaeval  touch, 
and  the  goose-boy  is  a  bit  of  delightfully  animated  naturalism 
of  a  modern  type.  The  young  man  who  executed  these  se\Tral 
works  plainly  had  not  yet  found  himself,  but  was  ranging  far  and 
trying  many  schools  in  a  tireless  search  for  his  own  individual 
style. 

If  Bitter  welcomed  these  Biltmore  commissions  because  they 
broadened  his  experience  and  kept  him  from  falling  into  a  too  exclu- 
sive decorative  rut,  he  seized  with  nothing  less  than  avidity  the 
first  opportunity  that  came  to  him  to  make  trial  of  a  public  statue. 
Let  us  recall  in  this  connection  that  by  the  somewhat  narrow  stand- 
ards prevailing  among  us  at  that  time  public  statues  and  public 
statues  alone  were  considered  the  test  of  a  sculptor's  abilit}-.  As 
it  happened,  a  group  of  admirers  wished  to  commemorate  Provost 
Pepper  on  his  retirement  from  the  headship  of  the  Universit)'  of 
Pennsylvania  and  after  some  hesitation  picked  Bitter  for  the  work 
(1896).  Elated  over  the  commission,  the  artist  slaved  hard  at  it 
for  several  seasons.  When  it  was  done,  the  dignified  olTicial,  bare- 
headed and  swathed  in  the  ample  folds  of  an  academic  gown,  was 
seen  seated  in  a  chair  of  state  lost  in  meditation.     But  his  is  not 


KARL    BITTER 

the  self-erasure  of  the  religious  meditation  of  the  East.  A  char- 
acteristic son  of  the  West,  the  provost  resorts  to  reflection  only  in 
order  the  more  resolutely  to  resume  a  habitual  activity.  The  con- 
tracted brow,  the  firm  jaw,  the  clenched  right  fist,  the  position  of  the 
feet,  indicate  that  the  fires  of  thought  burn  within  and  that,  break- 
ing bounds,  they  will  presently  lift  the  seated  figure  from  the  chair 
to  its  full  length  with  a  fulminating  message.  Head  and  hands  are 
admirably  expressive,  and  if  their  nervous  energy  seems  a  bit  exces- 
sive in  a  mere  pedagogue,  we  should  remember  that  energy  was  the 
property  which  Bitter  had  encountered  on  highway  and  byway 
in  America  and  which  appealed  to  him  as  the  superlative  American 
trait.  The  statue  thus  has  a  double  significance.  While  it  is  a 
portrait  representing  a  definite  personality  in  a  characteristic  pose, 
it  is  also  a  symbol,  for  it  is  the  American  of  the  last  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  seen  by  a  fresh-visioned  foreigner.  The 
bronze  provost  was  the  best  thing  Bitter  had  so  far  done;  one  does 
not  go  far  wrong  in  calling  it  the  apex  of  his  achievement  in  the  first 
or  experimental  period  of  his  development. 

The  many  architects  to  whom  Bitter  had  become  united  in  bonds 
of  amity  were  not  minded  to  let  their  collaborator  slip  without  pro- 
test into  the  ranks  of  the  monumental  sculptors.  Richard  Hunt 
indeed,  his  first  friend  and  protector,  had  died  in  1895,  but  other 
architects,  more  particularly  George  B.  Post  and  Frank  Furness, 
who  had  entered  into  relations  with  him  almost  as  soon  as  Hunt, 
continued  to  solicit  his  support  for  their  undertakings.  This  pro- 
longed popularity  with  the  building  profession  produced  gradually 
an  organization  of  his  work  which  is  not  without  passing  interest. 
We  found  Bitter  established  as  early  as  1890  in  his  first  studio  on 
East  Thirteenth  Street.  He  did  not  stay  there  long.  As  the  orders 
flowed  in,  he  needed  more  elbow-room,  and  took  a  house  on  East 
Fifty-third  Street  with  a  studio  on  the  ground  floor.  But  the  neigh- 
borhood was  noisy  and  unattractive,  and,  on  the  lookout  for  quiet, 
he  took  in  1896  the  decisive  step  of  abandoning  New  York  alto- 
gether in  favor  of  a  suburban  site  on  the  Jersey  cliffs  at  Weehawken. 
To  an  unsympathetic  observer  chancing  upon  these  successive 
studios  they  may  have  had  somethmg  of  a  factory  aspect,  but, 

28 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

viewed  in  a  spirit  of  friendliness,  they  never  failed  to  impress  the 
visitor  as  an  interesting  type  of  effective  organization  applied  to 
plastic  ornament.  In  this  organization  Bitter  himself  was  of  course 
the  hub,  the  center,  for  he  acted  as  designer,  modeler,  and  superin- 
tendent, while  a  body  of  assistants,  whose  number  varied  with  the 
commissions  in  hand,  made  plaster  casts,  roughed  out  the  clay 
figures,  and  executed  his  designs  in  marble  or  granite,  besides  doing 
the  hundred  and  one  things  required  in  so  active  an  establishment. 
Bitter's  youthful  and  regulated  energy  delighted  in  riding  the  hurly- 
burly  loosed  about  him.  He  dominated  the  scene  like  a  field- 
marshal,  saw  to  it  that  everybody  did  his  part,  and  kept  the  good 
will  of  the  architects  and  patrons,  not  only  by  never  declining  from 
his  standards,  but  also  by  delivering  his  work  with  business-Uke 
promptness  at  the  exact  time  it  was  contracted  for. 

The  steady  stream  of  marbles,  bronzes,  reliefs,  and  friezes  issuing 
from  those  three  studios  is  remarkable.  It  need  not  detain  us 
further,  since  the  most  expressive  pieces  have  already  been  enumer- 
ated. But  this  much  is  certain  and  calls  for  notice:  the  system- 
atized production  in  a  large  workshop,  as  well  as  the  range  and 
quantity  of  work  which  Bitter  i)ut  out,  made  him,  whether  he  would 
or  no,  what  his  colleagues  called  a  decorative  sculptor.  They  irked 
him  often  with  the  excessive  emphasis  they  laid  on  the  qualifying 
adjective,  for  he  had  no  desire  to  be  tagged  and  pigeonholed  and 
deprived  of  his  freedom  of  movement.  It  is  probable  that  his 
special  enthusiasm  for  the  Pepper  monument  was  kindled  by  the 
thought  that  it  signified  a  sort  of  declaration  of  independence.  But 
however  clear  he  made  it  that  he  wished  to  keep  a  path  open  to 
another  development,  the  fact  remained  that  he  was  at  this  time 
what  he  was  called,  a  decorative  scu]])tor.  But  what  of  it?  The 
decorative  ideal  was  neither  disgraceful  nor  inartistic,  and,  as  it 
happened,  a  great  building  era  having  burst  upon  America,  decora- 
tive sculpture  was  in  universal  demand.  'I'hat,  being  called  for,  it 
should  be  done  by  artists  rather  than  by  gravestone  establishments 
admitted  of  no  dispute.  None  the  less  the  American  tradition 
looked  askance  at  the  dependence  of  sculpture  on  architecture,  and 
a  certain  group  of  hyperaesthetes  in  and  outside  the  studios  did  not 

29 


KARL     B  I  T  T  F.  H 

scruple  to  visit  all  decorative  sculpture  with  contempt  on  the  mere 
ground  that  it  was  decorative.  Bitter  might  sigh  over  this  narrow- 
ness, but  courageously  went  about  his  business,  and  that  means  that 
for  many  years — until  a  period  to  be  noted  in  due  time — he  con- 
ducted what  was,  if  never  exclusively,  at  least  primarily,  a  work- 
shop for  decorative  and  architectural  sculpture.  It  is  therefore 
proper  before  pursuing  his  further  development  to  show  by  a  few 
examples  how  his  skill  and  understanding  of  this  kind  of  work 
steadily  grew  and  deepened. 

On  the  front  of  the  St.  Paul  Building  on  Lower  Broadway  will 
be  found  three  colossal  carj^atids  in  stone  representing  the  White, 
the  Negro,  and  the  IMalay  races  (1896).  They  are  not  casual 
features  of  the  facade,  but  integral  elements,  the  bodies  with  their 
heavily  accented,  straining  muscles  being  actually  engaged  in 
upholding  the  great  superimposed  mass.  Even  better  are  the  four 
statues  on  the  Fifth  Avenue  side  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts  (1899).  They  represent  Painting,  Sculpture,  .Architec- 
ture, and  Music  and,  while  simple  and  powerful,  are  at  the  same 
time  full  of  licpid  grace.  In  these  figures  Bitter,  imitating  no  school, 
dared  to  be  modern,  and  expressed  himself  with  such  charm  and 
ease  that  we  may  fairly  say  he  set  a  crown  upon  ten  years'  persistent 
application  to  the  decorative  division  of  his  art. 

Because  of  its  connection  with  a  stirring  period  of  our  national 
history  the  sculptor's  share  in  the  Dewey  Arch  must  be  recorded 
at  this  point.  Admiral  Dewey,  the  hero  of  the  battle  of  Manila, 
was  expected  back  in  the  United  States  in  the  autumn  of  1899.  In 
order  to  give  the  occasion  a  certain  dignity,  to  make  it  in  fact  a  sort 
of  Roman  triumph,  the  city  of  New  York  resolved  to  honor  the 
admiral  ^vith  an  official  reception;  and  the  National  Sculpture 
Society,  not  to  be  remiss,  requested  the  city  fathers  for  permission 
to  participate  in  the  celebration  with  a  triumphal  arch  for  which 
the  members  of  the  Society  were  to  donate  their  services.  The 
offer  was  accepted  and  Bitter  was  one  of  the  sculptors  who  volun- 
teered for  the  work.  Though  it  was  hastily  erected  of  perishable 
materials.  New  York  still  remembers  that  monument,  which  stood 
on  Fifth  Avenue  and  Madison  Square.     And  Bitter's  contribution 

30 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

to  the  handsome  improvisation  has  not  been  entirely  forgotten.  It 
consisted  of  a  naval  group  representing  a  gun-crew  in  action. 
Placed  against  the  right  pier  of  the  arch,  it  flashed  the  spirit  of 
battle  and  was  instinct  with  the  very  movement  of  life. 

However,  what  touched  Bitter  more  than  the  applause  which 
greeted  his  battle  group  was  the  occasion  itself;  for  he  had  partici- 
pated with  the  leaders  of  his  profession  in  raising  a  monument 
which  was  a  free  gift  to  the  nation.  Exactly  ten  years  had  passed 
since  his  arrival  in  America.  In  those  ten  years  he  had  achieved 
what  by  ordinary  human  standards  may  be  called  a  remarkable 
success.  But  success  and  the  physical  comforts  attending  it  had 
never  extinguished  the  flame  of  idcahst  enthusiasm  which  America 
had  lighted  in  his  heart  when  he  arrived  upon  its  shores,  a  bruised 
and  way-worn  fugitive.  For  years  he  had  cherished  the  thought 
that  he  would  repay  his  debt,  repay  as  an  artist  can  and  must,  in 
art,  for  art,  too,  like  war  and  politics  and  education,  was  a  form 
of  social  service.  Swayed  by  such  ideas,  no  wonder  that  he  derived 
deep  comfort  from  his  share  in  the  Dewey  Arch.  For  not  only  had 
his  fellow-sculptors  appointed  him  one  of  their  official  representa- 
tives in  an  undertaking  of  national  scope,  but  his  American  citizen- 
ship, affirmed  by  service,  admitted  of  no  further  question. 


31 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PAN-AMERICAN  EXPOSITION:    CLIMAX  AND  END 
OF  THE  DECORATIVE  PERIOD 

In  order  to  celebrate  the  growing  intimacy  of  the  nations  of  the 
Western  Hemisphere,  the  city  of  Buffalo  planned  for  the  year  1901 
a  great  exposition,  smaller  than  the  Chicago  Fair  of  1893  but 
artistically,  if  possible,  superior  to  it.  In  the  course  of  the  pre- 
liminary discussions  the  responsible  committee  of  citizens  saw  the 
desirability  of  drawing  a  sculptor  into  their  conferences  and  very 
properly  appealed  to  the  National  Sculpture  Society  to  delegate 
one  of  its  members  for  the  task.  After  thoroughly  canvassing  the 
situation  the  Society  named  Karl  Bitter,  who,  almost  from  its 
inception  in  1893,  had  figured  prominently  in  its  affairs. 

While  the  appointment  meant  that  in  the  opinion  of  his  col- 
leagues Bitter  possessed  the  particular  gifts  of  hand  and  character 
needed  for  a  most  delicate  and  important  undertaking,  it  also 
signified  that  decorative  sculpture,  the  cause  for  which  Bitter  had 
consistently  fought,  had  come  into  its  owti  and  was  honored  in  his 
person  with  responsible  participation  in  an  enterprise  of  national 
scope.  Finally,  the  appointment  had  a  personal  and  intimate  sig- 
nificance since,  much  as  in  the  case  of  the  Dewey  Arch,  the  new 
honor  could  fairly  be  interpreted  as  a  patent  of  citizenship  from  his 
guild  brothers,  presumably  better  qualified  than  any  other  American 
group  to  pronounce  judgment  on  this  foreign-born  recruit.  Bitter 
was  now  thirty-two  years  old.  After  an  active  struggle  of  ten  years 
in  his  adopted  country,  he  was  intrusted  with  a  task  of  artistic 
leadership  which  outstripped  his  boldest  dreams. 

Mr.  John  G.  MUburn,  of  Buffalo,  a  leading  member  of  the  com- 
mittee responsible  for  the  Pan-American  Exposition,  has  thus 
recorded  his  impression  of  Bitter  in  the  days  when  the  project  was 
taking  shape  in  the  busy  give-and-take  of  official  and  unofficial 
conferences:  "With  an  inspiration  that  captured  the  Board  of 
Architects  Bitter  conceived  and  developed  a  scheme  of  sculpture 

32 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

beginning  at  the  entrance  and  ending  at  the  tower,  which  unfolded 
and  illustrated  the  plan,  purposes,  and  objects  of  the  Exposition, 
not  as  a  miscellaneous  mass  of  buildings  and  exhibits,  but  as  an 
inherent  revelation  of  the  development  and  various  forms  of  energy 
and  activity  of  the  Western  Hemisphere."' 

And  Bitter  himself  has  left  a  very  detailed  description  of  his 
plan,^  from  which  it  is  plain  that  Mr.  Milburn  correctly  caught  his 
meaning  and  that  he  aimed,  above  all,  at  an  organic  composition. 
Accordingly,  he  developed  a  sculptural  scheme  which,  while  fully 
expressing  the  underlying  idea  of  the  Exposition,  was  intended  to 
realize  a  significant,  beautiful,  and  harmonized  decoration.  The  exe- 
cution of  the  various  parts  he  left  to  the  co-operating  sculptors,  who 
were  expected  to  assume  full  responsibility  for  their  respective  con- 
tributions. For,  be  it  understood,  if  Bitter  was  the  director,  the  com- 
pleted work  was  to  be  nothing  less  than  the  evidence,  spread  before 
the  country,  of  the  level  of  achievement  reached  by  the  brother- 
hood of  sculptors  in  America  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century. 

If,  putting  ourselves  in  the  director's  position,  we  now  proceed 
to  inquire  what  was  the  scheme  worked  out  by  the  architects  and 
submitted  to  Bitter  for  decorative  treatment,  we  discover  that  there 
were  buildings  in  groups  around  majestic  courts  and  along  splendid 
thoroughfares,  and  that  while  some  served  to  display  the  resources 
of  Nature,  such  as  forest  and  mineral  wealth,  others  celebrated  Man 
in  respect  of  his  moral  and  social  development,  and  still  others  pro- 
claimed Man's  inventive  genius,  by  virtue  of  which  he  has  attacked 
the  rich  stores  of  Nature  and  reduced  them  to  his  service.  Thus 
there  were  three  main  architectural  groups,  and  in  order  to  echo 
and  reaffirm  the  meaning  inherent  in  each  of  them  Bitter  provided 
as  a  central  feature  in  each  group  a  fountain,  to  wit,  a  fountain  of 
Nature,  a  fountain  of  Man,  and,  most  sumptuous  of  all,  a  Court  of 
Fountains,  lined  by  buildings  celebrating  the  progress  of  invention 
and  dedicated  respectively  to  Transportation,  Machinery,  Elec- 
tricity, and  the  cognate  fields.  Each  fountain  commanded  ajijiro- 
priate  sculptural  accessories  ranged  about  its  basin  and  was  in 
effect  a  story-book  with  a  lively  appeal  to  the  imagination  of 

■  Memorial  address,  May  $,  1913,  p.  11.  '  The  Criterion,  May,  1901. 

33 


KARL     BITTER 

whosoever  stopped  lo  turn  its  pages.  The  three  story-books  to- 
gether told  in  ordered  progression  the  tale  of  how  man  has  traveled 
toilfuUy  but  triumphantly  from  savagery  to  civilization. 

So  much  for  Bitter's  plan.  Of  course  there  were  disappoint- 
ments: the  limited  funds  necessitated  certain  omissions,  some  of 
the  best  artists  were,  for  one  reason  or  another,  unable  to  participate, 
and  several  of  the  participants  turned  in  discouragingly  mediocre 
work.  Against  these  drawbacks  were  mustered  a  number  of  notable 
advantages.  When  the  gates  were  opened,  there,  planted  over  the 
grounds,  was  a  display  of  several  hundred  original  figures  contrib- 
uted by  a  fairly  representative  group  of  sculptors  and  affording 
an  excellent  picture  of  the  status  of  American  art,  and,  what  was 
best  of  all  because  constituting  the  real  object  sought,  the  figures 
composed  themselves  into  an  artistic  decoration  attuned  to  the 
buildings  and  rehearsing  before  the  vnsitors  the  heroic  drama  of 
man's  struggle  upon  earth. 

Access  to  the  main  grounds  was  by  a  Monumental  Bridge  which 
was  planned  to  t>'pify  the  just  pride  of  the  American  people  in  their 
national  achievements  and  to  sound,  as  it  were,  a  loud  fanfare  of 
welcome  to  the  visiting  holiday  thousands.  The  Bridge  was 
dominated  by  four  imposing  piers  crowTied  by  mounted  Standard- 
Bearers  and  these  Standard-Bearers  were  the  individual  feature  in 
the  general  scheme  which  Bitter  reserved  to  himself.  The  towering, 
erect  riders,  triumphantly  clasping  their  banners  and  waving  them 
aloft  in  lordly  unconcern  of  their  wildly  ramping  steeds,  w-ere  not 
only  a  fine  decoration,  but  conveyed  an  almost  uncanny  impression 
of  controlled  power.  According  to  Mr.  Milburn  no  less  a  judge  than 
Saint-Gaudens  declared  that  the  Standard-Bearers  were  the  best 
product  of  the  sculptor's  art  within  the  confines  of  the  Exposition. 

Mr.  Milburn,  whom  we  have  quoted  on  the  general  plan,  also 
affords  a  personal  glimpse  of  the  director  in  action  which  deserves 
to  be  reproduced  because  it  helps  us  to  realize  some  of  the  traits  of 
character  which  gave  Bitter  such  authority  among  his  fellow- 
workers:  "All  this  was  a  great  undertaking  and  it  occupied  the 
best  part  of  two  years  of  his  life.  Upon  him  devolved  the  selection 
of  his  collaborators,  a  duty  which  he  discharged  with  infinite  tact, 

34 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

absolute  fairness,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  the 
men  selected.  Then  there  was  the  supervision  of  the  work  as  it 
proceeded,  the  superintendence  of  the  enlargement  of  the  models, 
and  the  placing  of  the  finished  works  in  position.  When  we  remem- 
ber that  there  were  more  than  five  hundred  of  these  productions, 
the  magnitude  of  the  task  is  apparent.  Moreover,  it  had  all  to  be 
done  on  time,  and,  if  the  individual  artist  is  inclined  to  be  careless 
of  the  passage  of  weeks  and  months,  what  must  have  been  the 
worry  over  an  army  of  them ! 

"I  wish  I  had  words  to  convey  our  admiration  and  respect  for 
him.  His  devotion  and  loyalty  never  faltered.  No  emergency 
daunted  him;  no  amount  of  labor  staggered  him.  His  zeal  and 
energy  and  courage  never  flagged  and  he  was  a  tower  of  strength 
to  us  from  beginning  to  end." 

A  last  quotation  will  show  how  this  Buffalo  citizen,  supposed  to 
be  chiefly  expert  in  figures,  delicately  fathomed  the  spirit  of  the 
artist:  "Bitter  lived  his  life  on  a  high  plane  and  the  world  was  to 
him  a  very  serious  place,  almost  to  the  degree  of  austerity.  But 
with  those  qualities  there  was  such  sweetness  of  nature  and  courtesy 
and  broad-mindedness  that  intercourse  with  him  was  as  delightful 
as  it  was  elevating."' 

The  opening  of  the  Bufifalo  Exposition  in  May,  1901,  was  a 
brilliant  ceremony  and  brought  the  director  of  sculpture  much 
generous  public  recognition.  He  had  climbed  a  height  and  now 
might  take  a  well-earned  rest  before  girding  his  loins  for  a  new  under- 
taking. He  could  not  more  appropriately  have  marked  the  tempo- 
rary end  of  the  uphill  struggle  of  life  than  he  did  when  on  June  30, 
1901,  he  married  a  woman  of  a  spirit  and  outlook  closely  akin  to  his 
own.  The  event  took  place  in  New  York  at  the  Unitarian  Church 
on  Fourth  Avenue.  The  simple  ceremony  over,  the  artist  yielded 
to  a  longing  inevitable  in  the  light  of  his  origin  and  took  his  bride 
to  Europe.  During  a  long  summer  spent  largely  bicycling  over  the 
ribbony  roads  of  France  and  wandering  on  foot  among  the  giants 
of  the  .'Xlps,  he  laid  up  a  plentiful  store  of  bright  memories  and  rich 
impressions.     Into  Austria,  where  a  grim  penalty  for  desertion 

•  Memorial  address,  May  5,  IQ15,  p.  12. 

35 


KARL     BITTER 

from  the  army  lay  in  wait  for  him,  he  did  not  venture,  but  he  met  his 
family  and  friends  outside  the  Austrian  border,  and  thus  successfully 
knit  up  the  unhappy,  unforgotten  past  with  the  prosperous  present. 
On  their  return  husband  and  wife  established  themselves  at  Weehaw- 
ken,  where  Bitter  had  already  sojourned  as  a  bachelor  since  1S96. 

The  home  at  Weehawken  henceforth  constituted  a  tender  and 
significant  element  in  the  web  of  his  life.  To  the  average  individual 
the  piece  of  earth  he  calls  his  own  is  likely  to  acquire  something  of 
a  sacred  character,  and  Bitter  in  all  matters  of  our  common  destiny 
was  very  much  Hke  other  men.  None  the  less,  if  the  plot  of  ground 
at  Weehawken  was  an  abiding-place,  it  was  more  than  that  too. 
It  hung  over  the  river  like  an  eyrie,  or,  since  an  eyrie  is  a  lonely 
mountain  rock  amid  the  snows,  let  us  say  that  it  was  a  platform 
lifted  above  the  welter  of  New  York  without  being  detached  from 
it.  In  any  case  the  platform  was  high  enough  to  be  swept  by  the 
free  winds  of  heaven  and  to  give  the  illusion  of  being  near  to  the 
coursing  sun  and  moon  and  stars. 

Bitter's  piece  of  ground  was  about  two  hundred  feet  long  and 
from  sixty  to  eighty  feet  in  depth.  It  lay  in  the  exact  axis  of  Forty- 
fourth  Street,  plainly  discernible  across  the  river  as  a  line  cutting 
New  York  into  two  halves  as  with  a  knife.  At  the  foot  of  the  cliffs, 
which  made  a  sheer  plunge  of  two  hundred  and  seventy  feet,  rolled 
the  proud  and  sparkling  Hudson,  crowded  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and 
seasons  of  the  year  with  puffing  tugs  and  lumbering  ferries.  Beyond 
the  river,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  stretched  the  vast  island  of 
Manhattan,  close-built  with  houses,  factories,  and  skyscrapers  and 
magically  hung  with  an  ever-changing  curtain  woven  of  mist  and 
sunlight.  To  reside  on  the  Jersey  palisades  was  a  delight,  but  it 
was  also  a  call  to  earnest  living.  It  constantly  revived  the  thought 
that  the  life  of  man  has  no  meaning  except  in  relation  to  the  total 
effort  of  his  fellows  and  that  all  who  dwell  on  earth  are  held  in  the 
close  embrace  of  God. 

For  the  sake  of  privacy  Bitter  surrounded  his  place  on  the  street 
side  ■\\'ith  a  high  wall,  and,  planting  his  house  on  the  northern  end 
of  the  inclosure,  he  built  up  his  business  quarters,  consisting  of 
studio,  stable,  and  stoneyard,  at  the  southern  end.     That  left  the 

36 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

considerable  space  between  house  and  studio  to  be  developed  as  a 
garden.  The  studio  was  elaborated  from  a  famous  suburban 
restaurant  which  had  stood  on  this  spot  before  he  purchased  it  and 
which,  reconstructed  with  an  eye  to  sculptural  necessities,  was  fitted 
with  iron  joists  and  pulleys  capable  of  handling  even  the  heaviest 
blocks  of  stone.  Although  the  studio  was  as  large  as  a  church,  it 
did  not  exhaust  the  business  space  at  Bitter's  disposal,  for  under 
the  same  roof  was  a  small  private  studio,  and  on  either  side  of  the 
entrance  to  the  studio  from  the  garden  stood  a  low,  circular  tower 
with  a  room  in  each  available  for  storing  casts,  or  housing  an  assist- 
ant, or  for  any  other  of  the  many  purposes  of  a  busy  establishment. 

The  stable,  which  adjoined  the  studio  at  right  angles,  usually 
contained  an  excellent  horse  or  two,  evidence  of  Bitter's  great 
attachment  to  this  animal.  His  love  of  riding,  brought  from  the 
old  country,  was  so  great  that  for  years  after  his  arrival  in  New 
York  he  took  his  exercise  chiefly  on  horseback  and  at  one  time  even 
joined  a  riding-club  which  aspired,  not  only  to  elegance,  but  to  the 
gaits  and  figures  of  the  haute  ecole!  After  his  marriage,  indeed,  the 
wild  dashes  through  the  Park  and  over  the  country  roads  of  West- 
chester gradually  lapsed  into  memories,  but  from  time  to  time  he 
still  rode  until  he  found  a  more  social  use  for  his  horse  b}'  hitching 
him  to  the  runabout  and  bowling  his  wife  and,  later,  his  children 
over  the  glorious  boulevard  that  crowns  the  Jersey  paUsades. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  garden  and  the  house.  The  garden 
was  a  green  delight  of  box-hedges  and  shrubbery  among  winding 
gravel  walks  and  was  adorned  by  one  of  his  own  fountains,  the  Boy 
with  the  Stolen  Geese."  Its  formahsm,  suggesting  order  without 
stiffness,  was  characteristic  of  the  man  who  always  frankly  avowed 
a  strong  kinship  with  the  eighteenth  century.  Bitter  was  fond  of 
his  garden  and  lo\-ed  to  sit  in  it  at  evening  gazing  over  toward  New 
York  which  at  that  magic  hour  flushed  like  a  great  rose  or  glimmered 
like  a  wall  of  pearl.  But  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  he  ever  cared 
for  the  garden  as  he  did  for  the  house.  On  this,  anchored  with 
endless  difficulties  in  the  bedrock  half  a  hundred  feet  below  the 
street-level,  he  had  bestowed  his  close  attention  with  the  result  that 

'  Original  at  Biltmorc. 

37 


KARL     BITTER 

visitors,  whether  they  were  pleased  or  displeased  with  what  they 
saw,  proclaimed  it  at  least  unique. 

The  kitchen  and  servants'  quarters,  apparently  excavated  out  of 
the  living  rock,  had  windows  only  toward  the  river,  and  were  as 
far  removed  as  was  physically  possible  from  the  dining-room,  which, 
directly  under  the  roof,  had  full  command  of  the  view.  The  house- 
keeping difficulties  involved  in  this  unusual  separation  of  inter- 
dependent parts  were  largely  overcome  by  means  of  a  dumb-waiter. 
Between  kitchen  and  dining-room  lay  the  living-room,  the  central 
feature  of  the  house  to  which  everything  else  was  subordinate. 
The  whole  east  or  river  wall  was  converted  into  a  vast  window  and 
in  the  center  stood  or  rather  dominated  a  large  monument  which 
sounded  the  formal,  sculptural  note  the  owner  loved.  I  am  refer- 
ring to  a  full-size  plaster  cast  of  Germain  Pilon's  famous  group  of 
the  Three  Graces.  Although  the  bookcases,  tables,  chairs,  piano, 
and  other  appurtenances  of  modern  living  somewhat  toned  down 
the  monumental  character  of  the  place  to  the  level  of  daily  com- 
fortable existence,  it  was  not  easy  in  the  presence  of  those  solemn 
goddesses  to  sink  into  a  vulgar  frivolity.  And  gaiety,  a  contained 
gaiety  which  never  passed  the  bounds  of  good  breeding,  became  the 
characteristic  atmosphere  of  that  living-room.  The  three  grave 
ladies  imposed  it  and  the  living  master  added  his  silent  approval. 

At  the  side  of  the  main  structure  containing  kitchen,  dining- 
room,  and  living-room  rose  a  square  tower  with  several  bedrooms 
on  different  levels,  each  affording  a  magnificent  view  either  up  or 
down  the  river.  The  quaint  combination  of  various  elements  in 
house  and  studio  gave  the  two  buildings  from  whatever  angle  they 
were  viewed  an. unusual  look.  Seen  from  the  shore  below  or  from 
the  platform  of  the  river  ferry,  they  silhouetted  themselves  boldly 
against  the  sky  and  on  a  moonlit  night  started  romantic  memories 
of  castles  seen  along  the  Rhine  or  Danube. 

In  July,  1902,  the  birth  of  a  son  filled  Bitter  with  deep  satisfac- 
tion. The  triangle  of  father,  mother,  and  child  suddenly  became 
to  him  one  of  the  fundamental  patterns  of  existence.  Being  the 
man  he  was,  he  was  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  realize  aU  these  new 
and  moving  experiences  of  family  and  home  in  his  chosen  art. 

38 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  NEW  CENTURY:    NEW  AIMS  AND  OLD  RESPONSIBILITIES 

That  the  new  century  would  bring  a  new  period  in  Bitter's  work 
was  indicated  by  many  signs.  First,  his  long  service  as  a  decora- 
tive sculptor  had  been  brought  to  a  fitting  close  at  the  Pan-American 
Exposition;  secondly,  his  marriage  had  given  him  a  new  outlook 
and  showered  upon  him  a  multitude  of  fresh  interests;  and,  finally 
and  most  important  of  all,  he  was  slipping  into  the  serener  waters 
of  ripened  manhood  and  wished,  as  every  artist  must  wish,  to  crown 
the  years  of  experimentation  with  his  own  inevitable  and  individual 
expression. 

Those  colleagues  and  acquaintances  who  judged  him  on  general 
evidence  to  be  a  gay  cavalier,  a  deft  artisan,  and  an  energetic  organ- 
izer who  had  already  given  the  full  measure  of  his  ability  were  in 
for  a  considerable  surprise.  Boon  companion  and  clever  workman 
he  was  indeed,  but,  what  did  not  appear  in  the  hurried  touch-and-go 
of  metropolitan  existence  and  was  therefore  unguessed  by  all  but 
his  intimate  associates,  he  was  also  an  artist  with  an  unslaked  thirst 
and  a  philosophic  view  of  man's  destiny  that  was  constantly  enriched 
by  thought  and  reading  and  was  serious  to  the  point  of  austerity. 

The  first  step  on  the  new  road  opening  before  him  in  the  new 
century  was  to  reorganize  his  studio.  It  had  been  accommodated 
to  the  demands  of  a  flourishing  decorative  establishment  fairly 
flooded  with  orders  and  often  enough  presented  the  appearance 
more  of  an  industrial  battlefield  than  of  the  retreat  of  an  artist. 
One  after  another  the  helpers  were  dismissed  and  further  decorative 
orders,  especially  if  they  carried  the  unsavory  odor  of  commercial- 
ism, rigorously  refused.  It  was  an  unspeakable  luxury  to  find 
himself,  after  many  years,  alone  in  his  spacious  workshop,  and  in 
the  spiritual  relief  which  he  experienced  (for  it  was,  above  all,  the 
spirit  which  was  unburdened)  he  often  enthusiastically  exclaimed 
that  he  would  never  again  admit  as  much  as  an  apprentice  to  his 
privacy  or  let  any  hand  but  his  own  see  his  productions  through  to 

39 


KARL     BITTER 

the  end.  Of  course  this  was  extravagance,  and  the  time  came 
when  he  again  employed  an  assistant  or  two  like  other  sculptors, 
but  the  factory  character  of  the  decorative  period  was  gone  from 
his  shop  forever,  having  been  displaced  by  the  sober  atmosphere 
congenial  to  the  man  who  tempers  energy  with  meditation. 

It  was  an  interesting  question  how  far  the  public,  whose  favor 
he  had  enjoyed  in  increasing  measure,  would  understand  and  accept 
the  new  phase.  Modern  life  is  so  much  an  affair  of  specialization 
that  people  almost  resent  as  an  affront  an  artist's  departure  from 
a  familiar  style  and  method.  Though  in  Bitter's  case  there  was 
nothing  so  serious  (or  laughable)  as  resentment,  there  was  plentiful 
evidence  of  lack  of  confidence,  and  the  orders,  which  had  thus  far 
been  numerous  to  the  point  of  embarrassment,  suddenly  ceased. 
Then,  just  as  he  was  preparing,  not  to  give  up  the  battle — anything 
rather  than  that — but  to  scale  down  his  manner  of  living  to  a 
contracted  income,  he  received  a  commission  exactly  after  his  heart. 

The  death  of  Henry  Villard,  who  had  been  an  important  figure 
in  the  astonishing  economic  development  of  America  in  the  period 
after  the  Civil  War,  had  filled  his  family  with  the  strong  desire  to 
perpetuate  his  memory  in  some  suitable  way.  To  Bitter's  new 
vision  the  usual  portrait  statue  seemed  a  somewhat  crude  and 
certainly  an  overworked  device,  and  he  persuaded  the  family  to 
commemorate  the  idea  which  dominated  the  life  of  the  deceased 
rather  than  to  reproduce  with  meticulous  realism  his  human  and 
ephemeral  features.  The  plan,  enforced  by  a  hurried  sketch,  was 
adopted  by  the  Villard  family  and,  after  many  changes  in  detail 
and  the  emotional  ups  and  downs  inevitably  connected  with  a 
novel  venture,  culminated  in  the  marble  monument  now  in  the 
cemetery  at  Sleepy  Hollow  on  the  Hudson. 

A  smith — type  of  all  craftsmen  from  the  far-off  days  of  Tubal — 
has  let  his  hammer  fall  to  the  ground  and  is  resting  on  his  anvil. 
His  day's  work  is  ended  and  he  is  weary — or  can  it  be  that  his  life's 
work  is  ended  and  he  has  heard  the  whispered  call  from  afar  ?  His 
head  is  thro\vn  back  and  he  is  looking  up  at  the  sky  with  an  expres- 
sion in  which  hope,  surprise,  and  question  mix  and  blend.  What  is 
this  mysterious  Death  that  interrupts  our  work?    the  smith  asks 

40 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

of  the  stars,  but  gets  no  answer  other  than  the  one  the  poet  Goethe 
heard:   Wir  heissen  Euch  hoffen!    ("  We  bid  ye  hope ! ") 

The  Hubbard  Memorial  at  Montpeher,  Vermont,  also  concerned 
with  death,  represents  a  gentler  mood,  being  much  more  softly 
melodious  than  the  Villard  monument.  An  occasional  critic  has 
suggested  that  the  single  draped  figure  of  the  Hubbard  Memorial 
was  inspired  by  Saint-Gaudens'  famous  Sybil  (often  called  Grief) 
at  Washington,  but  a  close  comparison  of  the  two  works  will  effect- 
ively dispel  the  idea  of  their  relationship.  The  Sybil  is  a  unique 
work  of  art  and  looks  out  on  the  spectator,  when  after  long  search 
he  confronts  her  in  her  woodland  retreat,  with  a  tragic  intensity 
inspiring  awe  and  fear.  Bitter's  angel  of  the  Hubbard  Memorial 
is  not  remotely  of  the  same  kin.  It  is  a  lyric  figure,  half  angel  and 
half  bird,  announcing  by  its  rhythmic  lines  and  every  fold  of  its 
wide  robe  that  Death  is  the  simple,  natural  conclusion  of  existence 
and  visits  mortals  on  the  wings  of  music.  In  so  far  as  there  was  an 
inspiration  for  the  figure  outside  the  artist's  consciousness  it  may 
be  found  in  the  lines  of  Bryant's  "  Thanatopsis "  appropriately 
inscribed  on  the  exedra  which  forms  the  background  of  the 
monument: 

....  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 

Still  another  memorial  of  this  period  is  in  the  Criminal  Court 
of  New  York  City  and  celebrates  Rebecca  Foster,  widely  known  and 
honored  as  "the  Tombs'  Angel,"  because  of  her  humanitarian 
services  among  youthful  transgressors  swept  into  court  from  the 
city  streets.  The  marble  plaque  in  medium  relief  shows  a  winged 
angel  who  has  come  from  behind  unawares  and  is  whispering  the 
message  of  hope  and  charity  to  a  boy  fallen  by  the  wayside.  At 
the  words  the  mask  of  evil  which  the  boy  has  worn  falls  as  by  magic 
from  his  face.  The  upturned  eyes  see  for  the  first  time  and  the 
half-open,  innocent  lips  jjroclaim  that  the  mouth,  stubbornly 
closed  so  long,  has  been  unsealed  by  the  warm  touch  of  love. 
In  a  composition  wholh-  idealistic  the  portrait  of  the  real  Rebecca 

41 


KARL     BITTER 

Foster,  inserted,  medallion-wise,  at  the  top  of  the  frame,  is  a  jarring 
note.  It  represents  an  unhappy  concession  which  Bitter  was 
obliged  to  make  in  order  not  to  offend  some  of  the  too  literal  friends 
of  the  brave  woman  who  certainly  showed  that  she  was  anything 
but  literal  in  her  championship  of  the  youthful  victims  of  the 
disorders  of  our  cities. 

That  he  had  no  objection  to  realistic  portraiture  wherever  it  was 
in  place  is  shown  by  the  charming  group  of  Mrs.  C.  R.  Crane  and 
Boy — in  a  rose-flushed  block  of  marble,  by  the  way,  such  as  comes 
upon  the  market  only  now  and  then — and  by  the  equestrian  statue 
of  General  Franz  Sigel.  The  Sigel  statue  occupied  him  for  several 
years  and  only  slowly  and  after  the  most  scrupulous  attention  to 
every  detail  of  rider  and  horse  assumed  the  shape  which  met  the 
public's  gaze  on  the  occasion  of  the  unveiling  in  October,  1907. 

It  is  written  that  every  sculptor  worth  his  salt  desires  to  do  an 
equestrian  statue  before  he  dies,  and  Bitter  was  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  Certain  German  societies,  wishing  to  place  before  the  people 
of  their  blood  as  an  example  to  be  emulated  a  compatriot  who  had 
risen  to  high  command  in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  sponsored 
the  plan  of  raising  a  monument  to  General  Sigel.  Unfortunately 
the  money  collected  was  not  sufficient  for  a  memorial  such  as  Bitter 
considered  worthy,  but  rather  than  refuse  a  commission  which 
stirred  his  energies  to  their  depths  and  had  something  of  a  public 
character,  he  contributed  his  time  and  that  of  his  assistants  for 
little  or  nothing.  It  was  highly  characteristic  that,  having  once 
made  up  his  mind  to  suffer  the  financial  loss,  he  never  again  referred 
to  it. 

The  statue  in  bronze  is  admirably  placed  where  One  Hundred 
and  Sixth  Street  meets  Riverside  Drive,  and  from  its  lofty  pedestal 
of  granite  towers  magnificently  over  both  Drive  and  river.  There 
are  some  famous  equestrian  statues  in  the  world,  but  very,  very 
many — the  expression  is  hardly  too  strong — infamous  ones.  Among 
the  countless  hazards  in  the  path  of  the  equestrian  sculptor,  the 
most  perilous  perhaps  lies  in  the  fact  that  if  he  places  his  horse 
fairly  on  four  legs,  he  gets  an  animal  without  life;  and  if  he  sets 
it  prancing  he  is  threatened  with  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma  in  the 

42 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

form  of  a  restless  composition  in  precarious  equilibrium.  Bitter 
straddled  the  issue  in  an  interesting  way.  He  secured  solidity  by 
having  his  horse  stand,  as  a  sensible  horse  respectful  of  the  equine 
decencies  should,  on  all  fours,  but  at  the  same  time  he  instilled  the 
necessary  life  into  his  animal  b)^  choosing  that  moment  for  repre- 
sentation when  the  general  has  just  reined  in  his  steed  after  dashing 
up  to  see  his  men  file  by  in  review.  The  just  completed  exertion 
still  quivers  in  everj'  nerve  and  muscle  of  the  animal,  while  the 
rider,  with  body  taut  as  a  bowstring  and  almost  erect  in  the  stirrups, 
gazes  earnestly  and  confidently  at  his  passing  troops.  Brown's 
Washington  and  Saint-Gaudens'  General  Sherman  are  equestrian 
monuments  of  which  New  York  may  well  be  proud;  it  is  certain 
that  the  city  need  not  be  ashamed  of  the  horse  and  rider  whom 
Bitter  wrought  and  who  are  one  of  the  landmarks  of  its  finest 
thoroughfare. 

Long  before  the  Sigel  was  set  in  place  an  event  had  come  and 
gone  which  re-established  Bitter's  connection  with  his  decorative 
past.  In  the  year  1904  the  city  of  St.  Louis  was  appropriately 
chosen  as  the  site  of  a  National  Exposition  held  to  celebrate  the 
centenary  of  the  purchase  from  France  of  the  vast  territory  of 
Louisiana.  The  event  had  occurred  when  Thomas  Jefferson  was 
President  of  the  United  States  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  chief 
executive  of  France.  As  soon  as  the  members  of  the  local  com- 
mittee came  to  discuss  the  Exposition  plans  they  resolved  to  call  in 
Bitter  as  their  plastic  expert.  So  great  was  the  authority  won  by 
him  on  the  occasion  of  the  Buffalo  Fair  that  he  appeared  immedi- 
ately as  the  "logical"  head  for  sculpture  at  St.  Louis,  and  though 
he  was  very  loath  again  to  exchange  his  hard-won  privacy  for  the 
dust  and  tumult  of  what  was  substantially  a  public  office,  he 
yielded  to  repeated  solicitations  and  once  more  resumed  the  responsi- 
bihties  of  director,  which  involved  nothing  less  than  the  tem- 
porary command  of  the  whole  army  of  sculptors  in  America. 

The  foremost  consideration  with  him  at  St.  Louis  as  at  Buffalo 
was  that  architecture  and  sculpture  must  co-operate  to  produce  a 
harmonious  composition.  At  the  same  time  the  ])lastic  decoration 
was  to  have  a  firm  unity  of  its  o\\ti.     If  at  Buffalo,  as  the  reader 

43 


KARL     HITTER 

may  remember,  this  unity  was  obtained  by  relating  the  whole 
decorative  undertaking  to  the  concepts  Man  and  Nature,  the  plan 
of  St.  Louis  was  to  have  all  the  sculpture  reflect  some  phase  of  the 
Winning  of  the  West.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  go  into  the  details 
of  Bitter's  plan,  as  his  procedure  on  a  similar  occasion  has  already 
been  narrated.  Suffice  it  that  the  Winning  of  the  West,  interpreted 
in  a  broad,  historic  sense,  included  within  its  generous  embrace 
Spanish  conquistadores  like  De  Soto,  French  missionaries  and 
explorers  like  Joliet  and  LaSalle,  stirring  memories  of  the  Red  man 
and  his  enemy,  the  pioneer,  the  gradual  creation  of  a  proud  array 
of  fourteen  states,  and,  of  course,  the  fortunate  treaty  by  which 
the  United  States  acquired  title  to  the  vast  dominion  of  Louisiana 
and  from  which  the  Fair  itself  was  named.  To  follow  the  sweeping 
sculptural  display  at  the  St.  Louis  Fair  with  a  seeing  eye  and  mind 
was  to  make  an  ennobling  excursion  into  one  of  the  greatest  chapters 
of  American  history. 

Bitter's  personal  contribution  consisted  of  the  decoration  of  the 
great  shaft  commemorating  the  Purchase  treaty.  The  shaft  was 
crowned  by  a  Peace  waving  the  ohve  branch  to  the  nations  of  the 
world.  At  the  base  there  were  female  figures  representing  the 
Mississippi  and  Missouri,  the  leading  waterways  of  the  purchased 
territory.  Seated  astride  the  prow  of  a  canoe,  they  were  instinct 
with  youth  and  fairly  shouted  their  love  of  enterprise  and  daring. 
After  a  single  jubilant  summer  of  existence,  the  two  river  deities 
together  with  the  Peace  and  shaft  were,  like  all  the  other  short-lived 
wonders  of  the  Fair,  swept  into  the  dustbins  of  Time.  Only  the 
tablet  which  appeared  upon  the  face  of  the  shaft  escaped  that  fate 
by  virtue,  we  may  confidently  affirm,  of  its  admirable  pertinency. 
It  represented  the  signing  of  the  Louisiana  Treaty,  the  very  act,  a 
composition  of  three  figures  of  whom  two,  Livingstone  and  Monroe, 
were  Americans,  and  one,  Marbois,  a  Frenchman.  At  the  close  of 
the  Exposition  this  plaque  was  ordered  for  the  city  of  St.  Louis  and, 
cast  in  bronze,  may  now  be  seen — together  with  a  Jefferson,  of 
whom  more  anon — in  the  Jefierson  ]\Iemorial  Building  which,  in  the 
years  following  the  Fair,  the  commissioners  erected  on  the  Fair 
grounds  as  a  peq^etual  memento  of  the  peaceful  concourse  of  the 

44 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

nations  of  the  world  in  the  prosperous  city  named  for  the  French 
warrior-saint. 

The  permanent  bronze  tablet  was  modeled  after  the  original 
in  staff,  but  represents  an  improvement  in  at  least  a  score  of  delicate 
details.  The  central  figure  of  the  scene  is  Livingstone,  who  alone, 
as  recent  investigation  proves,  with  as  good  as  no  help  from  his 
colleague,  Monroe,  supplied  the  energ}^  and  idealism  responsible 
for  this  greatest  of  American  diplomatic  victories.  He  is  seated 
and  with  folded  hands  is  looking  into  the  future,  seeing,  like  the 
patriotic  visionary  he  was,  the  happy  results  of  this  negotiation  for 
the  American  people.  Behind  him,  in  dandified  indifference,  stands 
Monroe,  and  before  him,  in  the  breathless  act  of  signing  in  the  name 
of  France,  the  amiable  Marbois,  long-time  friend  of  the  young 
trans-Atlantic  republic.  Although  each  figure  is  strikingly  indi\ad- 
ualized,  they  all  have  in  common  a  certain  eighteenth-century 
elegance  and  are  bound  together  into  a  compact  and  dramatic 
composition.  The  details  contribute  each  its  harmonious  note, 
particularly  the  many-branched  candelabrum  on  the  table  and  the 
charming,  old-style  lettering  at  the  top  of  the  plaque.  This 
reproduces  the  noble  and  prophetic  statement  telling  of  "ages  of 
happiness  for  innumerable  generations  of  human  creatures"  with 
which  Livingstone  greeted  the  delivery  of  the  signed  and  perfected 
instrument  into  his  hands. 

An  incident  of  the  St.  Louis  Fair  deser\'es  mention  as  illustrating 
Bitter's  ability  to  handle  all  classes  and  manners  of  men  and  to 
hold  them  to  a  common  enterprise,  not  by  autocratically  breaking 
their  wills,  but,  in  the  democratic  way,  by  bringing  them  with 
patient  argument  to  the  perception  of  a  higher  purpose.  Bitter 
had  as  a  gift  from  nature  a  simple  eloquence,  very  different  from 
the  trained  declamation  of  the  schools  because  merely  a  naive 
outpouring  of  the  honest  convictions  that  filled  his  being.  At  the 
outset  his  audiences,  usually  the  dinner-guests  of  the  various 
societies  to  which  he  belonged,  were  often  biased  against  him  by 
the  fact  that  he  spoke  English  with  a  foreign  accent,  but  the  bias, 
according  to  overwhelming  evidence,  always  melted  swiftly  before 
the  hot  torrent  of  his  words.     This  man,  who,  the  listeners  seemed 

45 


KARL     BITTER 

to  feel,  spoke  without  studied  grace,  rcjiresentcd  no  petty  view  or 
selfish  interest,  but  a  cause  that  claimed  them  all. 

At  St.  Louis  it  happened  that  a  serious  crisis  was  precipitated 
only  a  few  weeks  before  the  day  set  for  the  opening  of  the  Fair  by 
the  Plasterers'  Union  threatening  a  strike  if  any  but  their  own 
members  were  employed  in  placing  and  mending  the  statuary. 
The  proceeding  with  regard  to  Bitter's  division  of  the  work  was 
as  follows:  The  models  of  the  co-operating  sculptors,  cast  in 
plaster,  were  assembled  by  the  director  in  a  former  railroad  round- 
house in  Hoboken,  New  Jersey,  and  were  there  enlarged  and 
completed  in  stafif,  the  usual  material  for  exposition  purposes.  As 
many  of  the  figures  were  too  large  and  unwieldy  for  shipment,  they 
had  to  be  done  in  sections,  which  sections,  on  their  arrival  in  St. 
Louis,  needed  to  be  carefully  fitted  together  and  scrupulously 
repaired  when  injured.  Here  is  where  the  Plasterers'  Union  stepped 
in.  It  declared  emphatically  through  its  walking  delegates  that 
the  mending  and  joining  were  its  particular  work.  The  fact  was, 
however,  that  the  work  was  so  involved  and  delicate  that  only 
trained  artists  could  do  it,  and  Bitter,  maintaining  his  position  as 
vigorously  as  the  union  bosses  did  theirs,  refused  to  have  his  figures 
botched  by  inexpert  fingers.  Shrill  wrangling  led  nowhere  till 
Bitter  had  the  happy  thought  of  summoning  the  whole  body  of 
plasterers  to  a  hall  for  a  conference.  There  he  laid  the  case  before 
them  in  his  usual  fiery  manner.  He  unfolded  the  artistic  quality 
and  national  significance  of  the  Exposition,  and  when  the  session 
closed  the  men  themselves,  yielding  their  selfish  claims,  abandoned 
their  leaders  and  voted  the  concession  that  made  possible  the 
completion  of  the  work  according  to  Bitter's  ideas. 


46 


CHAPTER  VII 
PUBLIC  SERVICES  AND  PUBLIC  COMMISSIONS 

Ever  since  its  creation  in  1893  Bitter,  a  charter  member,  had 
been  greatly  interested  in  the  National  Sculpture  Society.  He 
hoped,  as  all  the  founders  did,  that,  after  the  manner  of  an  ancient 
guild,  the  Society  would  serve  to  protect  the  material  interests  of 
the  members,  but  together  with  his  fellows  he  also  entertained  the 
hope  that  the  Society's  collective  efforts  would  prove  far  more 
effective  than  the  scattered  action  of  individuals  in  spreading  the 
ideals  of  sculpture  through  the  community.  His  gift  of  expression, 
as  weU  as  his  readiness  and  ability  to  do  administrative  work,  soon 
pushed  him  to  the  front.  In  1899,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  among 
those  intrusted  by  the  Society  with  the  decoration  of  the  Dewey 
Arch;  in  1900  he  was,  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Society,  raised 
to  the  post  of  director  of  sculpture  at  the  Pan-American  Exposition ; 
and  beginning  with  the  year  1903  he  was  re-elected  almost  annually 
to  the  Society's  governing  board  or  council.  It  was  only  natural 
that,  after  having  thus  proved  his  capacity  for  leadership,  he 
should  have  been  elected  to  the  presidency  of  the  Society  in  1906 
in  succession  to  Daniel  Chester  French,  who  had  himself  succeeded 
J.  Q.  A.  Ward,  first  president  and  honored  dean  of  the  American 
wielders  of  the  chisel. 

The  presidency  was  held  by  Bitter  for  two  years  (1906-8)  and 
must  have  won  the  approval  of  the  members,  for,  after  a  lapse  of 
time,  in  1914,  he  was  again  raised  to  the  highest  executive  office  and 
held  it  at  his  death. 

The  words  and  actions  of  Bitter  as  representative  of  the  sculptors 
of  America  uniformly  showed  that  he  was  concerned  less  with  the 
privileges  of  the  plastic  profession  than  with  its  duties  toward  the 
public  upon  which  it  leaned  for  support.  True,  he  followed  in  this 
a  tradition  of  the  Society  already  happily  established  under  his 
predecessors  in  office.  But  he  was  aware  that  good  traditions  were 
not  enough:  the  fight  against  egotism  and  decay  must  be  unceasing. 

47 


KARL     BITTER 

Every  society  of  craftsmen,  and  more  particularly  of  artists,  waxing 
fat  and  self-satisfied,  runs  the  risk  of  becoming  the  tool  of  a  govern- 
ing clique.  Bitter  knew  that  only  the  steady  admission  of  new 
blood,  the  policy  of  the  Open  Door,  could  keep  the  Sculpture 
Society  from  going  stale  and  degenerating  into  a  common  nuisance. 
Therefore  he  advocated,  not  only  the  greatest  liberality  in  electing 
meritorious  young  men  to  membership,  but  also  the  stirring  program 
of  keeping  the  Society  serviceable  to  the  public  interest. 

In  these  years  of  his  executive  connection  with  the  National 
Sculpture  Society  he  entered  with  steadily  increasing  fervor  into 
the  faith  that  sculpture,  like  every  other  art,  is  pre-eminently  a 
social  function.  Not  that  the  belief  was  the  result  of  this  particular 
executive  experience,  which  came  to  him  relatively  late  in  life. 
The  case  was  rather  the  other  way  round:  he  accepted  official 
responsibilities  because  from  his  youth  in  Vienna  he  had  been 
brought  to  think  of  sculpture  in  relation  to  the  total  activity  of  man 
and  had  resolutely  rejected  the  notion,  not  unknown  abroad  and 
very  current  in  America  in  what  used  to  be  caUed  fin-de-siecle  circles, 
that  the  fine  arts  were  essentially  an  esoteric  rite  reserved  to  a 
few  hollow-chested  and  consumptive  aesthetes.  Of  course  Bitter 
aroused  opposition  with  his  doctrine,  especially  when  he  used  his 
official  position  as  a  sounding-board  to  fling  his  message  afar,  but  it 
is  certain  that  he  commanded  a  substantial  following  in  and  out  of 
the  Society  which  heartily  indorsed  the  program  of  keeping  the 
sculptors  of  America  united  and  uplifted  by  exercising,  in  effect,  a 
public  trust. 

Inspired  by  these  civic  ideals,  Bitter  could  not  but  welcome  his 
appointment  by  the  mayor  of  New  York  to  the  Municipal  Art 
Commission.  It  occurred  in  January,  1912,  and  bound  him  to  the 
city  service  for  three  years,  that  is,  till  close  before  his  death. 
Owing  to  the  prejudice  against  public  control  obtaining  in  our  very 
individualistic  society,  the  authority  of  the  Art  Commission  was 
rather  limited.  The  members,  ten  in  number  (including  the  mayor) 
and  serving  without  pay,  were  authorized  to  pass  on  all  public 
buildings  and  monuments  to  be  erected  on  land  belonging  to  the 
city  of  New  York.     WTiile  clothed  with  an  unlimited  veto  power 

48 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

against  monstrous  or  feeble  public  projects,  they  were  not  permitted 
to  exercise  a  constructive  leadership  in  the  spirit  of  the  new  art  of 
town-planning.  Bitter  attended  to  his  duties  on  the  Art  Com- 
mission with  an  assiduity  and  a  devotion  that  won  the  respect  of 
all  his  associates.  Mr.  George  McAneny,  former  president  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen  and  familiar  through  long  association  with 
Bitter's  municipal  activity,  has  made  a  generous  avowal  of  the 
city's  debt  to  its  indefatigable  servant,  but  he  has  also  shown  by 
quotations  from  Bitter's  letters  to  him  that  the  artist  never  ceased 
to  lament  the  absence  of  a  broad,  flexible,  and  forward-looking 
program  destined  to  serve  as  guide  for  a  development  of  the  city, 
frankly  modern  and  yet  aesthetically  attractive.'  Though  the 
haphazard,  hit-and-miss  method,  sanctified  by  age-long  practice, 
was  not  abandoned  either  then  or  since,  assuredly  sometime, 
though  most  probably  when  it  is  too  late.  New  York  will  regret  its 
failure  to  exercise  a  proper  foresight  with  regard  to  the  artistic 
co-ordination  of  its  squares,  public  buildings,  monuments,  parks, 
bridges,  and  systems  of  transportation.^ 

Even  though  New  York  was  laggard,  the  fact  that  town-planning, 
the  new  science  and  art  resulting  from  the  inordinate  industrial 
growth  of  cities,  made  rai)id  advances  in  America  filled  him  with 
rejoicing.  Occasional  journeys  had  brought  him  into  favorable 
acquaintance  with  some  of  the  cities  of  the  Middle  West,  and  he 
came  to  think  that  among  them,  swelling  with  local  pride  and  un- 
burdened with  the  individualist  traditions  of  the  older  cities  of  the 
coast,  town-planning  would  first  come  into  its  own.     He  therefore 

'  Memorial  address,  May  5,  1915. 

'  .\n  excerpt  from  a  letter  of  the  assistant  secretary  of  the  Art  Commission,  Mr.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  may  serve  to  complete  the  record  of  Bitter's  activity  in  office:  "During  the 
three  years  of  Mr.  Bitter's  term  the  .\rt  Commission  passed  upon  six  hundred  and  thirteen 
separate  matters,  which  was  an  average  of  two  hundred  and  four  a  year.  This  of  course  meant 
a  great  deal  of  work  for  the  members  of  the  Commission  and  especially  for  Mr.  Bitter,  who 
was  usually  chairman  of  the  committees  to  examine  the  models  and  locations  of  sculpture. 

"Mr.  Bitter  was  a  very  conscientious  member  of  the  Commission  and  performed  his 
duties  most  faithfully.  He  gave  a  great  deal  of  time  to  the  work  and  I  have  known  him  to 
go  out  with  a  committee  the  entire  day  visiting  proposed  locations  of  fountains  and  monu- 
ments  Hisbreadthof  view,  intelligence,  and  sound  judgment  were  of  great  value  to  the 

Commission  and  to  the  city  in  the  determination  of  many  important  questions  that  arose 
during  his  tenure  of  office." 

49 


KARL     BITTER 

greeted  with  satisfaction  the  commissions,  all  of  them  more  or 
less  of  a  public  nature,  which  presently  came  to  him  from  such 
centers  as  Madison,  Cleveland,  St.  Louis,  and  Minneapolis.  Of 
these  commissions  we  shall  presently  speak,  but  the  mere  monu- 
ments, considered  as  works  of  art,  do  not  tell  the  full  story  of  his 
efforts.  By  means  of  his  time  generously  given  to  official  com- 
mittees or  private  groups  of  public-spirited  citizens,  he  spread,  with 
an  eloquence  that  never  failed  to  fire  his  listeners,  the  new  evangel 
of  the  City  Beautiful,  proclaiming  it  the  cause  of  all  artists,  and 
certainly  not  least  of  his  immediate  brethren,  the  sculptors. 

Largely  because  it  was  a  public  monument  to  be  incorporated 
in  the  present  and  future  life  of  New  York,  he  threw  such  energy 
into  the  commission  that  came  to  him  in  1908  to  raise  a  memorial 
to  Carl  Schurz,  soldier,  statesman,  writer,  but,  above  all,  fearless  and 
upright  citizen.  In  this  case,  however,  Bitter  felt  also  a  peculiar 
private  stimulus  to  give  his  best.  Schurz,  like  Bitter  himself  had 
fled  from  unhappy  conditions  in  the  Old  World  and  had  found  in 
America,  not  only  physical  well-being,  but  a  political  and  social 
situation  that  appealed  to  his  manhood  and  set  his  heart  and  mind 
astir.  The  plan  and  execution  of  the  Schurz  monument  occupied 
him  for  five  years  and  probably  there  was  not  a  detail  which  in  his 
usual  tireless  search  for  the  most  expressive  contour  he  did  not 
subject  to  half  a  score  of  changes. 

The  completed  monument,  superbly  placed  at  the  end  of  One 
Hundred  and  Sixteenth  Street  overlooking  Morningside  Park, 
shows  the  citizen-statesman  in  advanced  but  hale  old  age,  dressed 
in  the  simple  manner  in  which  his  neighbors  met  him  of  an  afternoon 
when  he  sallied  forth  for  exercise.  His  long  overcoat  falls  in  folds 
to  his  feet  and  he  is  pausing  for  a  moment,  hat  in  hand,  to  view  the 
prospect  before  him.  The  note  of  extreme  republican  simplicity 
sounded  by  the  posture  and  apparel  is  repeated  by  the  expressive 
face,  where,  however,  it  mounts  to  an  almost  Roman  severity, 
proclaiming  more  eloquently  than  words  that  patriotism  is  less  a 
matter  of  rights  than  of  the  hardest  kind  of  service. 

Schurz  himself,  in  bronze,  stands  upon  a  pedestal  infolded  by  a 
semicircular  stone  bench  inviting  the  passerby  to  rest  and  reflection. 

SO 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

On  the  face  of  the  pedestal  and  at  either  end  of  the  bench  are 
allegorical  scenes  in  relief,  easUy  as  interesting  work  as  Bitter  has 
done.  In  the  central  scene  a  youth  vows  his  sword  to  the  service 
of  his  country,  while  in  the  panel  on  the  left  the  helmeted  Republic 
angrily  breaks  the  chains  of  the  black  slaves,  and  in  the  panel  on  the 
right  Liberty  with  her  torch  lights  the  way  for  the  citizens,  young 
and  old.  There  is  a  minimum  of  costume  in  these  allegories,  but 
such  as  exists  has  classical  suggestions  in  keeping  with  the  idealistic 
intent.  The  idealistic  touch  characterizes  also  the  workmanship, 
which  sharply  accentuates  the  outlines  and  is  content  to  handle  the 
bodies  in  a  succession  of  broad  planes.  In  these  panels,  wrought  in 
gray-black  granite  tough  as  iron.  Bitter  proved  that  his  decorative 
sense  had  by  no  means  declined,  while  the  simplified  technique, 
reducing  weighty  ideas  to  their  plainest  terms,  showed  that  he  had 
mastered  a  new  language. 

However,  the  panels  of  the  Schurz  monument  were  not  the  first 
essay  in  a  new,  simplified,  and  idealistic  speech.  A  few  years  before. 
Bitter  had  been  asked  to  decorate  the  doors  of  the  First  National 
Bank  of  Cleveland  and  on  this  occasion  had  departed — apparently 
for  the  first  time — from  his  more  or  less  naturalist  past  and  achieved 
the  largeness  of  style  suited  to  express  ideas  and  forms  of  eternal 
value.  The  Cleveland  figures — men  and  women  caryatids  done, 
like  the  Schurz  panels,  in  hard  granite — should  be  compared  with 
the  four  figures  of  the  Arts  wrought  for  the  New  York  Metropolitan 
Museum  ten  years  before.  Both  works  represent  architectural 
sculpture  of  a  high  order,  but  few  observers  will  hesitate  to  attribute 
the  grander  effect  as  well  as  the  completer  union  with  fafade  and 
structure  to  the  later  contribution. 

In  Cleveland,  too,  he  was  asked  to  assist  in  the  sculptural 
decoration  of  the  new  Court  House.  Here  the  nature  of  the  task 
set  him  by  his  clients  required  a  return  to  reaUstic  portraiture.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  convey  the  idea  that  he  ever  acquired  an  aversion 
for  this  kind  of  work;  on  the  contrary,  he  liked  it  well  wherever  it 
was  appropriate,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  realm  of  idealistic 
expression  opened  to  him  more  and  more  as  life  advanced  and  that 
the  novelty  as  well  as  the  unexplored  possibilities  of  the  new  style 

SI 


KARL     BITTER 

lured  his  adventurous  spirit.  A  very  considerable  proportion  of  his 
latest  and  ripest  work,  it  will  be  found,  served  to  express  his  new 
feeling  and  is  unfolded  in  the  terms  of  his  new  technique. 

Bitter's  contributions  to  the  Cleveland  Court  House  consist 
of  two  English  jurists,  Lord  Somers  and  Lord  Mansfield,  in  their 
official  plumage  of  an  almost  inhuman  magnificence,  and  of  two 
famous  but  opposed  interpreters  of  the  spirit  of  the  Young  American 
Republic,  Hamilton  and  Jefferson.  The  two  Americans  are  seated 
on  either  side  of  the  entrance  to  the  Court  House  and  the  manu- 
scripts and  notes  in  the  hand  of  each  suggest  that  they  are  still 
defending  the  opinions  that  divided  them  when  they  were  alive. 
A  considerable  section  of  American  history  is  expressed  by  these 
two  founders  in  perennial  debate,  one  on  the  right,  the  other  on  the 
left,  side  of  the  portal  to  the  House  of  Law. 

Bitter  could  not  approach  the  eighteenth  century  without 
reaUzing  the  elegance  of  dress  and  bearing  associated  with  its 
fundamentally  aristocratic  Hfe.  Hamilton,  as  is  natural,  proclaims 
the  gentleman  more  than  Jefferson,  but  even  the  Virginia  democrat 
does  not  deny  his  eighteenth-century  lineage.  It  is  the  youthful 
and  rebellious  Jefferson,  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
who  appears  before  us  at  Cleveland.  Shortly  after  the  completion 
of  this  work  St.  Louis  demanded  a  Jefferson  for  the  Jefferson 
Memorial  Building  erected  to  commemorate  the  great  Fair  of  1904. 
In  the  previous  chapter  this  building  has  already  received  notice 
in  connection  with  Bitter's  tablet  representing  the  Signing  of  the 
Purchase  Treaty  of  1803.  On  being  asked  to  make  a  further 
contribution  to  the  Memorial  Building  in  the  shape  of  a  Jefferson, 
he  resolved  to  work  out  a  different  concept  from  the  one  adopted 
for  Cleveland  and  to  present  an  older  and  more  authoritative 
Jefferson,  not  Jefferson  the  revolutionary  thinker,  but  Jefferson 
the  chief  executive  of  the  United  States.  The  new  Jefferson — the 
President — sits  firmly  in  his  chair  of  office,  searching  the  horizon 
with  his  eyes  as  if  he  were  seeking  to  discern  the  far-off  future  of 
his  people  and  his  country. 

To  do  justice  to  the  spirit  of  Jefferson,  Bitter  read  assiduously 
his  works  and  letters.     He  came  to  love  the  somewhat  erratic, 

52 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

warm-hearted  old  democrat  and  was  not  disappointed  when  he 
received  from  his  friend,  Charles  R.  Crane,  a  third  commission  for 
a  Jefferson  to  be  placed  on  the  grounds  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 
Located  at  Charlottesville,  almost  in  the  shadow  of  Jefferson's 
famous  residence  at  Monticello,  the  University  of  Virginia  was  the 
darling  child  of  Jefferson's  old  age.  Not  only  did  the  retired 
President,  whose  withdrawal  from  politics  signified  no  abatement 
of  interest  in  the  young  Repubhc,  breathe  the  spirit  of  life  into  the 
Virginia  venture,  but  he  personally  drew  the  original  plan  con- 
sisting of  grounds,  lecture  halls,  and  dormitories.  It  is  no  small 
source  of  satisfaction  to  the  admirer  of  Jefferson  that  the  University 
of  Virginia,  which,  as  it  stands  today,  constitutes  one  of  the  finest 
architectural  groups  up  and  down  the  face  of  our  land,  owes  its 
effectiveness  to  those  first  sketches  by  the  sage  of  Monticello.  It 
was  manifest  to  Bitter  when  he  attacked  the  problem  of  Jefferson, 
the  founder  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  that  the  founder  was  not 
identical  with  the  other  two  Jeffcrsons  already  completed,  the 
thinker  and  the  President.  He  therefore  created  a  third  Jefferson, 
very  hke  the  St.  Louis  Jefferson  to  superficial  inspection,  but 
simpler,  older,  with  more  of  the  gravity  and  reverence  of  the 
patriarch.  The  unveiling,  which  he  had  planned  to  attend  with 
a  joyous  company  assembled  by  Mr.  Crane,  the  donor,  occurred 
three  days  after  the  fatal  accident — without  him. 

Among  the  portrait  commissions  which  came  to  Bitter  in  these 
days  of  his  growing  reputation  two  stand  forth  as  being  somewhat 
out  of  the  ordinary.  Instead  of  the  succession  of  the  famous  dead, 
two  well-known  living  Americans  knocked  at  his  studio  door  to 
have  their  form  and  features  reproduced  at  the  urgence  of  a  large 
body  of  admiring  followers.  They  were  President  Angell  of  the 
University  of  Michigan  and  President  White  of  Cornell  University. 
Bitter  not  only  enjoyed  the  diversion  of  studying  these  portraits 
from  the  original  instead  of  posing  a  hired  model  in  more  or  less 
successful  make-believe,  but  also  delighted  in  the  conversation  of 
these  rare  and  traveled  gentlemen  who  in  their  long  sittings 
recounted  in  pointed  anecdote  or  sage  reflection  the  experiences 
of  a  lifetime  of  public  service  glowing  with  mo\-ement  and  color. 

S3 


KARL     BITTER 

The  bronze  President  Angell,  in  relief,  adorns  the  entrance  to  the 
great  assembly  hall  of  the  University  of  Michigan;  President 
White,  a  full  bronze  figure,  is  seated  under  the  trees  on  the  Cornell 
grounds  silently  revie\ving,  as  it  were,  the  student  generations 
filing  by. 

Turning  again  to  the  work  done  by  Bitter  in  the  idealistic 
manner  which  is  so  important  a  feature  of  the  last  stage  of  his 
development,  we  cannot  afford  to  neglect  his  labors  for  the  state 
of  Wisconsin.  At  Madison,  the  capital,  a  new  state  building 
was  erected  and  of  its  four  pediments  two  were  assigned  to  Bitter; 
to  him  also  were  intrusted  the  symbolic  groups  high  up  at  the  base 
of  the  central  dome.  These  groups,  four  in  number  and  represent- 
ing, respectively.  Abundance,  Strength,  Knowledge,  and  Faith, 
exhibit  that  generalized  and  suave  treatment  of  the  human  form 
which  we  call  classical.  Though  the  groups  are  effective  composi- 
tions, it  would  be  a  tedious  task  to  attempt  to  transpose  them  into 
words.  An  undoubted  drawback,  whether  due  to  the  miscalcula- 
tion of  the  sculptor  or  of  the  architect,  is  that  the  groups  are  raised 
to  an  elevation  which  removes  them  from  the  easy  inspection  of 
anyone  not  endowed  with  telescopic  vision. 

This  drawback  in  no  way  attaches  to  the  two  pediments.  They 
have  been  much  admired,  more  particularly  the  one  representing 
the  state  of  Wisconsin  exultantly  displaying  to  the  world  the  wealth 
of  her  natural  resources.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  monu- 
mental composition  of  recent  years  which  is  more  compact  or 
better  balanced.  Let  us  remind  ourselves  that  the  pediment, 
considered  as  a  form  of  art,  presents  a  number  of  special  difficulties. 
In  this  pediment  of  Bitter's  they  are  solved  almost  pla}'fully,  the 
composition  tapering  off,  naturally  and  gracefully,  from  the  erect, 
majestic  female  figure  of  Wisconsin  in  the  center  to  the  fishers  and 
hunters  reclining  at  the  angles.  A  horse  and  an  ox,  powerfully 
modeled  in  simple  planes,  together  with  a  ram,  a  fawn,  a  dog,  and 
a  badger — this  last  constituting  the  loved  totem  of  the  state — are 
felicitously  distributed  among  the  harvesters  and  hunters  to  call 
to  mind  that  a  state  is  not  only  a  congregation  of  men  and  women, 
but  a  complex  of  woods,  fields,  streams,  and  animals.     A  spirit 

54 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

of  joyousness  envelops  the  pediment  from  end  to  end,  suppljang 
the  final  touch  which  welds  it  into  unity. 

When  Bitter  was  asked  to  raise  a  monument  to  Thomas  Lowry, 
leading  citizen  of  Minneapolis  in  his  day  and  generation,  he  dis- 
covered once  more  that  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  a  portrait-statue 
is  deep-rooted  with  the  average  person.  The  sculptor  had  to  agree 
to  represent  Lowry  in  his  e.xact  human  counterfeit,  but  as  a  sort  of 
salve  to  his  disappointment  he  had  conceded  to  him,  to  treat  as  he 
pleased,  a  site  consisting  of  a  triangular  plot  of  ground  created  by 
the  intersection  of  two  city  streets. 

The  problem  was  a  difficult  one,  especially  the  embarrassing 
figure  of  the  tall,  lanky  Minneapolis  pioneer,  whom  his  admiring 
fellow-citizens  clamored  to  see  as  they  had  known  him,  clothed  in 
the  impeccable  trousers  and  frock  coat  of  bourgeois  respectability. 
It  would  be  useless  to  pretend  that  Thomas  Lowry,  as  he  appears 
in  bronze,  is,  taken  by  himself,  picturesque  in  any  way.  But  the 
triangular  space  put  at  the  artist's  disposal  was  so  intelligently 
used  to  modify  the  plebeian  literalness  of  the  statue  that  the  total 
effect  is  entirely  different  from  that  produced  by  the  average 
bronze  patriot  who  sounds  a  humorous  or  cacophonous  note  along 
our  city  thoroughfares.  The  notable  thing  was  that  Bitter,  while 
doing  a  portrait-statue  with  his  usual  whole-hearted  sincerity, 
concerned  himself  chiefly  with  the  monumental  ensemble  and  the 
necessity  of  fitting  it  harmoniously  into  the  city's  established 
physiognomy.  His  performance  therefore  should  be  weighed  as  evi- 
dence regarding  his  skill  as  a  town-planner,  and  such  being  the  case, 
the  statue,  which  may  or  may  not  arouse  enthusiasm  on  realistic 
grounds,  reduces  itself  to  a  detail  in  an  effective  urban  composition. 

Turning  to  this  composition,  we  note  that  before  the  bronze 
citizen,  the  necessary  kernel  of  the  plan,  spreads  a  triangular  garden- 
plot  and  that  behind  the  statue,  shutting  it  off  from  an  apart- 
ment house,  which,  unless  concealed,  would  have  spelt  ruin,  rises  a 
tall  marble  screen  in  three  sections.  In  the  two  end  sections  of 
the  screen  are  allegorical  figures  intended  to  recall  the  civic  virtues 
of  the  man  upon  the  pedestal,  and  carried  out  in  an  impressive 
architectural  manner.     The  original  plan  was  that  the  allegorical 

55 


KARL     BITTER 

figures,  a  crouching  man  and  woman,  representing  respectively 
Civic  Strength  and  Civic  Fruitfulness,  should  be  shown  as  reliefs. 
As  the  reliefs  faced  north,  however,  and  would  be  uninteresting 
in  the  even  light  in  which  they  would  be  seen,  Bitter  hit  on  the  not 
often  used  device  of  perforating  the  marble,  thus  giving  his  figures 
an  unusually  striking  silhouette.  The  matter  deserves  mention  as 
showing  his  ready  ingenuity  in  meeting  the  various  difficulties 
certain  to  arise  with  every  new  task  of  the  sculptor. 

In  this  period  of  the  artist's  development  fell  a  new  National 
Exposition  planned  to  celebrate  the  completion  by  our  government 
of  our  greatest  national  venture  to  the  present  day,  the  Panama 
Canal.  The  honor  of  harboring  the  Fair  was  very  properly  con- 
ceded to  San  Francisco,  and  Bitter  was  once  more  called  to  serve  as 
director  of  sculpture.  Loaded  with  commissions,  evidence  of  his 
growing  favor,  he  was  unable  to  accept.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  authority 
he  enjoyed  on  the  score  of  his  previous  successes  at  Buffalo  and 
St.  Louis  that  pressure  was  so  persistently  brought  from  many  sides 
that  he  at  length  withdrew  his  refusal.  But  while  agreeing  to 
draw  the  plans  and  exercise  a  general  supervision,  he  insisted  that 
the  labor  on  the  ground  be  intrusted  to  his  friend,  A.  Stirling 
Calder.  His  association  with  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  of 
1915  therefore  lacks  the  intimacy  of  his  service  with  the  two  older 
ventures.  The  general  sculptural  scheme  was  his  and  doubtless, 
too,  we  may  attribute  to  his  spirit  the  harmonious  co-operation  of 
so  many  different  artists.  But  he  was  only  occasionally  on  the 
spot  at  San  Francisco  and  made  no  personal  contribution  to  the 
Exposition  statuary.  Since  the  story  gained  credence  that  he  was 
fabulously  rewarded  for  his  general  superintendence,  it  is  proper 
to  remark  that  he  gave  his  services  for  nothing.  Only  for  the 
general  plan,  involving  a  not  inconsiderable  personal  expense,  did 
he  accept  remuneration. 

While  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  does  not  loom  large  in 
the  history  of  Karl  Bitter,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  last 
year  of  his  life  he  was  as  much  a  rallying-point  for  American  sculp- 
tors as  he  had  ever  been  and  that  he  continued  to  exercise  a  natural 
leadership  in  aU  enterprises  calling  for  a  concerted  artistic  effort. 

56 


CHAPTER  VIII 
FINALE:    THE  MAN  AND  HIS  WORK 

Through  his  energy  and  administrative  talent  as  well  as  through 
his  eagerness  to  participate  in  the  affairs  of  city  and  state,  Bitter 
figured  in  no  inconsiderable  manner  in  the  public  life  of  America 
in  his  day.  The  previous  chapters  have  recorded  his  share  in 
various  activities  and  enterprises,  professional,  municipal,  and 
national,  and  have  emphasized  his  faith  that  all  the  arts,  and 
therefore  also  sculpture,  have  their  final  justification  in  social 
service.  While,  in  Bitter's  view,  the  artist's  immediate  concern 
was  to  enhance  man's  environment  by  adding  beauty  to  utility — 
and  in  this  sense  all  craftsmen  alike  are  or  should  be  artists — it 
was,  according  to  him,  the  special  prerogative  of  the  followers  of 
what  are  called  the  Fine  Arts  to  exercise  besides  a  spiritual  function, 
inasmuch  as  the  Arts  and,  together  with  them,  the  Sciences  must 
shape  the  ideals  by  which  alone  man  can  be  brought  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  high  destiny  and  to  the  achievement  of  a  noble 
civilization. 

Bitter  was  the  more  profoundly  impressed  with  this  mission  of 
the  Arts  by  virtue  of  the  attempts,  constantly  renewed,  to  preach 
the  social  detachment  of  the  artist  under  the  confusing  battle-cry 
of  art  for  art's  sake.  UTien,  therefore,  he  was  invited,  in  the  last 
year  of  his  life,  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  sculpture  in  an  art  series 
arranged  by  the  Architectural  League  of  New  York,  he  accepted 
with  alacrity.  The  lecture,  he  reflected,  would  have  the  advantage, 
not  only  of  helping  him  crystallize  his  own  ideas,  but  also  of  present- 
ing them  in  concise  form  to  a  professional  and  influential  public. 
Delivered  in  1914,  the  lecture  exists  unfortunately  only  in  manu- 
script. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  it  has  never  been  published, 
especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that,  altliough  we  boast  an  abundance 
of  books  on  sculpture  by  critics  and  amateurs,  we  have  very  few  by 
practicing  sculptors  with  a  record  of  successful  work  in  their  day. 

57 


KARL     BITTER 

The  lecture,  in  the  main,  is  technical,  and  offers  a  business-like, 
professional  explanation,  which  eschews  every  hackneyed,  dilet- 
tante phrase,  of  the  way  in  which  the  production  of  statuary  was 
accomplished  in  the  past  epochs  of  European  art.  No  reader  but 
will  find  it  full  of  marrow  and  strikingly  illuminative  of  many  a 
dark,  historical  comer.  But  the  theme  in  which  the  lecturer 
particularly  delights  and  which  he  weaves,  like  a  wreath,  through 
the  whole  exposition  is  that  in  the  great  periods  of  the  past  the 
sculptor  was  also  architect,  engineer,  bronze-founder,  and  not 
infrequently  a  public  official  to  boot — that  is,  he  was  engaged  in  a 
direct,  practical  manner  on  all  the  problems  of  his  time,  artistic  and 
social,  and  stood  firmly  rooted  in  reality.  The  present-day  sculp- 
tor, having  little  commerce  with  architects  and  they  as  little  with 
him,  modeling  exclusively  in  clay  and  insufficiently  acquainted  with 
the  technique  of  the  stonecutter  and  the  bronze-founder,  and,  finally, 
called  on  to  make  statues  or  statuettes  chiefly  for  the  drawing- 
rooms  and  country  houses  of  wealthy  connoisseurs— this  specialized 
sculptor  has,  in  too  many  cases,  become  hopelessly  divorced  from 
the  great,  pulsing  life  of  his  time.  That  he  reassociate  himself  with 
the  body  poHtic,  that  he  become  practical  again  in  the  most  fruitful 
sense  of  the  word,  is  the  culminating  demand  of  this  spirited  and 
informing  essay. 

It  is  apparent  that  such  a  lecture,  expressive  though  it  be  of  a 
practical  bent  and  a  grinding  shop-experience,  could  not  have  been 
written  if  Bitter  had  not  commanded  the  history  of  his  art  and  been 
an  earnest  lover  of  books.  And  such  indeed  was  the  case.  He 
had  acquired  the  reading  habit  far  back  in  his  academy  days,  never 
to  lose  it  while  he  Hved.  The  result  was  that,  as  his  material  means 
increased,  he  collected  a  considerable  library,  which,  while  boasting 
the  usual  classics  of  general  literature,  confessed  a  specialist's 
interest  in  the  field  of  art.  In  this  department  he  bought  almost 
lavishly,  not  only  histories  and  biographies,  but  more  particularly 
photographs,  of  which  his  collection  rivaled  that  of  many  an  art 
school.  We  are  all  aware  that  artists  are  often  unconcerned  with 
books  and  that  sometimes  they  are  ignorant  and  contemptuous  of 
the  past  of  even  their  own  immediate  field.     Though  regrettable, 

58 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

this  state  of  things  is  perhaps  inevitable  since  the  artist  is,  after  all, 
primarily  a  craftsman  and  not  a  bookworm.  But  a  new  doctrine, 
rather  commonly  held  by  the  rising  generation,  goes  a  step  farther 
and  affirms  that  a  creative  artist  must  deliberately  avoid  the  past 
in  order  not  to  be  brought  under  the  tyranny  of  the  dead  masters. 
For  this  teaching  Bitter  entertained  nothing  but  scorn,  holding  that 
it  was  born  of  fear  and  indolence.  His  steady  practice  was  to  read 
as  much  as  his  time  allowed  in  the  confident  hope  of  enriching  his 
outlook  and  broadening  his  personality.  And  without  question  he 
succeeded  in  this  purpose,  for,  as  we  should  not  fail  to  note,  since 
it  is  the  nub  of  the  issue,  the  art  knowledge  he  acquired  was  a  living 
thing,  cherished  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  because  it  threw  a  pene- 
trating light  on  the  particular  problems  which  the  artists  of  his  day 
and  generation  had  to  face.  These  problems,  however,  he  never 
doubted  constituted  the  real  concern  of  the  living  sculptor  and 
therefore  they  remained  the  shining  central  mark  of  all  his  thought 
and  study. 

Two  other  fields  of  Bitter's  reading  deserve  a  word.  One  was 
American  history.  His  passion  for  his  adopted  country,  as  well 
as  the  great  public  tasks  which  came  to  him,  easily  explains  this 
preference.  We  have  already  noted  that  in  connection  with  his 
various  Jeffersons  he  dove  deep  into  the  records,  preferably  the 
actual  words,  of  the  great  democrat.  Hamilton,  too,  who,  by  the 
way,  was  killed  in  his  famous  duel  with  Burr  at  a  point  only  a  few 
steps  below  Bitter's  Wechawken  home,  was  read  assiduously  by 
him  before  he  put  to  paper  the  first  rapid  sketch  for  the  Cleveland 
statue.  In  connection  with  each  of  the  great  fairs,  but  especially 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposition,  he  did  a 
considerable  amount  of  reading  having  to  do  with  the  general 
de\-clopment  of  America,  and  the  writer  remembers  with  pleasure 
how  vivaciously,  in  connection  with  the  diplomatic  history  of  the 
Franco- American  Treaty  of  1803,  he  rode  into  the  lists  for  Living- 
stone, whose  merit  in  the  matter  of  the  Louisiana  acquisition  he  held 
to  have  been  obscured  by  the  historians.  One  of  the  books  with 
which  he  lived  closely  before  he  drew  even  a  line  of  his  plans  for 
the  Purchase  E.xposition  was  Roosevelt's  Winning  of  tlic  West. 

59 


KARL     BITTER 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  through  Bitter's  sympathetic  media- 
tion something  of  the  spirit  of  daring  of  the  famous  rough-rider 
gained  plastic  expression  on  the  St.  Louis  Fair  grounds. 

The  second  field  of  Bitter's  reading,  which  under  no  circum- 
stances may  be  omitted  from  consideration,  was,  using  the  term 
untechnically,  philosophy.  If  it  was  a  man's  part  to  know  his 
country,  it  was,  according  to  him,  no  less  a  man's  part  to  know 
something  of  nature  and  the  universe  of  the  sun  and  stars.  Bitter 
shared  with  every  considerable  person  that  has  ever  lived  the  desire 
to  obtain  a  satisfactory  point  of  view  from  which  to  envisage  the 
assembled  data  of  experience.  Early  in  life  he  had  rejected  the 
viewpoint  of  revealed  religion — the  reader  may  remember  his 
naive  revolt  against  the  Catholic  church — and  had  gradually 
drifted  into  the  scientific-skeptical  currents  dominant  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  drifting  does  not  do  justice 
to  his  attitude,  for  he  was  by  no  means  content  to  repeat,  parrot- 
like, the  famous  scientific  passwords  of  the  day.  He  wished  to 
master  for  himself  the  chief  evidence  in  favor  of  the  new  doctrine 
of  evolution  and  became  an  assiduous  reader  of  books,  not  too 
technical,  written  to  propound,  from  the  angle  of  modern  learning, 
the  story  of  this  earth  of  ours  and  of  the  manifold  life  upon  it. 
His  interest,  for  instance,  in  the  great  ascending  stages  of  sea  life 
and  land  life  or  in  the  evolution  of  the  horse  from  an  animal  no 
bigger  than  a  dog  was  perennial.  Part  of  this  interest  was  no 
doubt  merely  an  uncommon  delight  in  information,  but  inevitably, 
with  his  artist's  love  of  unity,  he  tried  to  fit  his  bits  of  knowledge 
into  a  co-ordinated  scheme.  It  was  at  this  point  that  he  invaded 
what,  unconventionally  speaking,  we  may  call  the  realm  of  philos- 
ophy, and  came  upon  God,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth.  Of  course 
the  God  disclosed  to  his  manhood  search  was  not  the  deity  of  the 
Catholic  catechism,  rejected  in  his  youth,  nor  the  deity  of  any  other 
Christian  sect;  it  was  the  God  of  science,  the  God  who  is  Nature, 
Life,  Eternity. 

Attempting  to  put  the  living  faith  of  Bitter's  ripened  manhood 
into  a  word,  we  may  say  that  he  was  an  affirming  evolutionist,  a 
much  rarer  tj^e  unfortunately  than  the  evolutionist  who  exhausts 

60 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

himself  in  negation.  His  joyous  and  instinctive  sense  of  an  unseen 
unity  transcending  all  appearance  of  division  led  him  finally  to  a 
definite  step.  He  declared  himself  a  monist  and  joined  the  League 
of  Monists,  a  society  the  members  of  which  profess  a  glad,  con- 
structive faith  in  man  and  nature  and  which  is  established  in  all 
countries,  though  its  main  seat  and  chief  following  are  in  Germany. 
Perhaps  no  reading  of  his  last  years  gave  him  so  much  comfort  and 
strong  uplift  as  the  publications,  in  the  nature  of  essays  and  lay 
sermons,  of  this  society.  Some  of  the  monist  pamphlets  were 
always  on  the  table  at  the  head  of  his  bed,  and  night  after  night  he 
would  dismiss  the  troubles  of  the  day  and  bid  his  spirit  join  the 
harmonious  march  of  nature  by  lighting  his  lamp  and  reading 
himself  to  sleep  with  his  eyes  glued  to  a  monist  dream  of  progress 
and  fellowship. 

A  man  whose  thoughts  ranged  so  far  afield  was  of  course  an 
eager  traveler.  Bitter  came  to  know  x^merica  well,  especially  the 
West,  some  of  its  more  spectacular  wonders,  like  the  Sequoia 
forests,  stirring  him  to  descriptions  on  return  to  his  fireside  that 
the  hearers  will  never  forget.  But  Europe,  and  more  particularly 
Austria,  the  well-beloved  though  unkind  mother,  were  not  for- 
gotten. On  several  early  trans-Atlantic  visits  he  was  obliged  to 
skirt  his  native  land  because,  as  we  know,  in  deserting  from  the 
army  he  had  been  guilty  of  what,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  was  a 
felony.  In  iqcq  he  was  rejoiced  b>'  the  news  that,  in  consequence 
of  the  vigorous  solicitation  of  his  Viennese  friends,  a  pardon  had 
been  extended  to  him  by  Emperor  P>ancis  Joseph.  Accordingly, 
in  the  summer  of  ly  lo,  with  his  wife  and  three  children  as  lively  and 
convincing  witnesses  of  his  new  existence,  he  revisited  the  scenes 
of  his  youth.  His  father  had  died  the  year  before,  but  his  mother 
and  two  brothers  made  him  welcome  in  the  city  of  his  birth,  and 
many  a  faithful  old  friend  came  to  shake  him  by  the  hand.  Apart 
from  the  quiet  spiritual  satisfaction  of  rewelding  the  broken  pieces 
of  his  life,  the  journey  to  Vienna  yielded  as  chief  fruit  the  certain 
knowledge  that  he  was  a  deracinated  European  and  belonged  with 
every  corpuscle  of  his  blood  and  every  energy-  of  his  spirit  to  the 
land  of  his  adoption. 

6i 


KARL    BITTER 

Travel  in  America  and  Europe  was  relished  as  vacation  sight- 
seeing, but,  enjoyable  as  it  might  be,  it  always  failed  in  the  long  run 
to  compare  with  the  delight  that  came  to  him  from  his  summer 
home  in  the  wilds.  We  have  seen  how,  after  a  few  years  of  crowded 
New  York,  he  had  built  his  house  and  workshop  off  the  beaten 
metropolitan  track  on  the  Weehawken  cliffs.  A  charming  and 
unique  retreat,  it  yet  was  not  untrammeled  out-of-doors.  This 
Bitter,  lover  of  nature,  sought  by  settling  on  an  island  in  Racquette 
Lake,  one  of  the  most  untamed  regions  of  the  Adirondacks.  Begin- 
ning in  1903  he  migrated  thither  with  his  growing  family  every  year 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  Vieimese  summer  mentioned  above. 
On  the  island  which  he  picked  for  settlement  he  acquired  an  existent 
camp,  embracing  a  small  cabin  and  a  boathouse.  The  island, 
connected  by  tradition  with  an  Indian  chief,  Oteetiwi  by  name,  was 
an  impenetrable  forest  except  for  the  half-acre  or  so  of  clearing  at 
the  point  where  the  camp  lay.  Around  the  little  settlement  the 
forest,  mixed  of  pine  and  beech,  wove  its  verdant  screen  with  such 
luxuriance  that  the  fisherman  or  sailor  gliding  by  in  his  boat  noticed 
no  signs  of  a  human  habitation  until  he  was  within  stone's  throw 
of  the  shore. 

It  was  a  wildwood  Eden,  but  even  Eden,  as  we  know,  has  its 
perils  and  disturbances.  One  hapless  Fourth  of  July  evening  the 
camp  caught  fire,  just  how  was  never  known,  and  went  up  in  smoke 
with  such  amazing  rapidity  that  the  sleeping  children  were  barely 
snatched  from  the  jaws  of  death.  It  was  not  the  owner's  way  to 
be  dismayed  by  the  sudden  ruin.  WTien  the  morning's  sun  arose 
he  rolled  up  his  sleeves  for  a  fresh  start  and  began  that  very  day  a 
new  cabin  on  the  site  of  the  old.  The  cabin  done,  he  added  a 
kitchen,  a  boathouse,  and  finally  a  studio,  raising  them,  be  it 
observed,  with  his  own  hand  with  the  help  of  at  most  a  workman 
or  two  picked  up  in  the  neighboring  lumber-camps.  Of  course 
he  did  not  do  it  all  in  the  first  summer  of  the  fire  nor  in  the  summer 
after  that.  He  went  his  own  deliberate  gait,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  he  built  his  home  in  the  woods,  laboring  with  the  utmost 
exhilaration  through  many  weeks  of  each  summer,  much  like  an 
early  pioneer  pushing  the  edge  of  civilization  forward  into  the 

62 


A     B  I  O  G  R  A  r  H  Y 

kingdom  of  the  Red  man.  And  occasionally,  in  order  to  var}'  the 
proceeding,  he  dropped  the  workman's  ax  or  mason's  trowel  and 
took  to  building  beds,  chairs,  and  other  household  furniture  out 
of  the  raw  timber  at  his  door. 

When  after  many  summers  of  this  sort  of  labor  the  Racquette 
Lake  camp  was  done,  it  was  as  unique  in  its  way  as  the  suburban 
home  at  Weehawken.  Both  were  not  only  achievements  of  his 
brain,  but  also,  particularly  the  summer  camp,  products  of  his 
hands.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  in  these  days  of  specialization 
an  artist  often  resides  in  a  house  raised  by  himself  acting  in  the 
several  capacities  of  architect,  mason,  carpenter,  and  painter. 
The  handmade  camp  was,  to  say  the  least,  an  evidence  of  Bitter's 
sincere  love  of  tools,  but  it  was  also  the  living  proof  that  he  not  only 
preached  but  practiced  his  belief  in  the  artist's  need  of  coming  to 
actual  grips  with  life. 

The  man  we  have  been  describing  was,  as  he  neared  the  end  of 
the  forties,  a  ripened  personality  confirmed  in  a  philosophy  of  life 
which  he  had  elaborated  from  an  unusually  rich  and  varied  experi- 
ence. Since  all  his  manhood  works  speak  of  this  maturity,  we  have 
already  discovered  it  in  the  great  public  commissions  discussed  in 
the  previous  chapter.  But  a  less  monumental  and  more  intimate 
kind  of  work,  with  traces  of  a  very  personal  confession,  remains  to 
be  treated.  Sculpture — heaven  be  praised! — is  not  all  of  one  kind, 
and  an  artist  who  trusts  his  taste  discovers  that  there  are  occasions 
for  being  frankly  subjective,  as  there  are  other  occasions  for  being 
resolutely  detached  and  unmoved.  A  group  of  Bitter's  works  of 
the  last  period  remaining  to  be  discussed  all  sound  unmistakably 
the  warm,  personal  note.  Pre-eminent  among  them  are  the  Rocke- 
feller Fountain  and  the  Prehn  and  Kasson  memorials. 

The  Rockefeller  Fountain  at  Pocantico  Hills,  showing  a  naked 
goose-girl  who  has  laughingly  snatched  a  young  goose  from  its 
mother,  is  one  of  Bitter's  best  tributes  to  the  joy  of  living.  To 
deal  with  the  riddle  of  existence,  to  cherish  the  philosophic  atti- 
tude, does  not  at  all  mean  that  one  must  surrender  the  view- 
point of  youth,  and  to  throw  but  a  single  glance  at  the  Rockefeller 
Fountain  witli  its  merry  confusion  of  geese  and  girl  is  to  receive 

63 


KARL     BITTER 

the  assurance  that  the  author  had  a  rich  fund  of  childlike,  natural 
gaiety. 

In  sharp  contrast  with  this  gaiety,  but,  however  solemn,  born 
of  the  identical  love  of  life,  are  the  Prehn  and  Kasson  memorials. 
The  former  was  raised  to  three  little  children  who  died  too  soon. 
It  stands  in  the  cemetery  of  Passaic,  New  Jersey,  and  consists  of  a 
circular  tabernacle  (of  which  Henry  Bacon  was  the  architect) 
constructed  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  the  famous  choregic  monu- 
ment of  Lysicrates.  The  sculptor  contributed,  in  high  relief,  a 
procession  of  children — some  gay,  some  sorrowful,  but  all  of  them 
delightfully  childlike,  who  carry  a  festoon  of  leaves  as  they  move 
circle-wise  along  the  outer  surface  of  the  monument.  Within  the 
tabernacle  he  put  as  single  occupant  the  little  bronze  figure  of  a 
girl,  gazing  in  mixed  astonishment  and  dismay  at  the  faded  flowers 
in  her  hands.  Death  in  childhood,  death  that  comes  to  interrupt 
play  and  laughter,  can  hardly  be  given  a  more  poignant  expression. 

The  Kasson  Memorial  shows  a  kneeling  woman  and  is  in  marble 
and  life-size.  The  woman's  soul  is  releasing  itself  from  the  confining 
flesh  and  at  the  very  acme  of  the  struggle  hears  a  voice  out  of  the 
Dark  bringing  a  message  of  good  cheer.  The  figure,  fairly  quivering 
with  the  delicate  beauty  of  swaying  body  and  raised  arms,  strangely 
touches  the  imagination  with  its  portraiture  of  human  fears  sud- 
denly hushed  in  the  presence  of  Eternity. 

In  the  winter  of  19 14-15,  destined  to  prove  the  last  of  his  life, 
Bitter  worked  chiefly  on  two  projects,  the  Plaza  figure  and  the 
Depew  Fountain.  Both  were  close  to  his  heart,  first,  because  they 
stimulated  his  newer  idealistic  expression,  and,  secondly,  because 
they  were  intended  to  mark  important  city  foci  and  be  merged  in 
the  permanent  life  of  their  respective  communities.  The  Depew 
Fountain,  ordered  by  Indianapolis,  never  got  beyond  the  first 
plastalina  sketch.  But  what  there  is  of  it  shows  a  fairy  or  deity 
of  some  sort  set  high  on  a  pillar  and  weaving  with  lifted  arms  an 
enchantment  which,  falling  upon  a  group  of  boys  and  girls  of 
various  ages,  moves  them  to  clasp  hands  and  join  in  a  dance  of 
bewitching  abandon  and  exuberance.  The  fountain  was  to  be 
erected  in  a  city  park,  appointed  playground  of  the  young  as  well 

64 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

as  the  chosen  habitation  of  the  goddess  Spring  on  her  annual  visit 
to  our  urban  centers,  and  Youth  and  Spring  are  the  twin  genii  who 
have  set  their  seal  on  this  attractive  sketch.  After  the  artist's 
death,  the  committee  of  Indianapolis  citizens  in  charge  of  the 
project  arranged  to  have  the  model  carried  to  completion  by 
A.  Stirling  Calder.  Thus  Indianapolis  will  have  the  fountain  it 
desired,  but  it  will  in  the  main  be  looked  upon,  and  very  properly, 
as  Mr.  Calder's  work. 

The  Plaza,  gateway  to  New  York's  great  Central  Park,  had 
always  struck  Bitter,  during  his  many  years  of  residence  in  the 
city,  as  falling  short  of  the  monumental  character  which  might  be 
properly  expected  of  it.  He  was  therefore  pleased  to  hear  that  a 
New  York  citizen,  Joseph  Pulitzer,  had  left  money  for  a  fountain 
to  be  erected  on  the  Plaza,  and  was  positively  delighted  when  the 
architect  to  whom  the  fountain  was  intrusted  asked  him  to  do  the 
single  figure  which  was  to  unify  and  crown  the  enterprise.  He  had 
some  years  before,  in  1909  to  be  exact,  on  his  children  arriving  at 
the  age  for  school,  regretfully  consented  to  move  with  his  family 
across  the  river  to  New  York.  While  renting  the  house  and  garden, 
he  retained  the  spacious  Weehawken  workshop,  dividing  his  time 
between  it  and  a  smaller  studio  attached  to  his  apartment  in  New 
York.  Desiring  now  to  concentrate  his  undiv^ided  attention  on  the 
Plaza  figure,  he  fitted  out  rough  sleeping-quarters  at  the  studio 
where,  alone  except  for  a  single  assistant,  he  could  pass  his  days 
and  nights  unreached  and  uninterrupted  by  the  worries  of  the  day. 

Thus  centered  on  himself,  he  made  rapid  headway  with  his 
figure.  WTien  spring  came — and  it  came  early  in  the  year  191 5, 
bringing  a  long  succession  of  dazzling  days— he  was  enabled  to 
swing  his  model  onto  the  terrace  outside  the  studio  overlooking 
river  and  city  and  to  work  in  the  open  air.  As  Easter  approached 
he  had  a  first  experimental  cast  made  and  permitted  himself  to  be 
unusually  exultant  over  it,  for  he  felt  that,  apart  from  minor 
changes,  he  had  his  conception  in  hand. 

The  Plaza  figure  represents  a  nude  woman  standing  with  left 
foot  somewhat  raised  and  body  turned  to  the  left  as  she  makes 
ready  with  quiet  deliberation  to  scatter  a  basket  of  fruits  and 

65 


KARL     BITTER 

flowers.  The  atmosphere  of  the  figure  is  classic  in  the  sense  that 
while  there  is  movement,  the  movement  is  neither  instantaneous  nor 
violent,  and  in  the  further  sense  that  while  there  is  realism,  that  is, 
a  close  adherence  to  the  forms  of  nature,  we  are  not  invited  to  gaze 
at  a  particular,  individualized  woman  but  at  generic  woman,  the 
eternal  woman-mold.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  spectator  catch- 
ing the  classic  feeling  will  be  inclined  to  discover  in  the  Plaza  figure 
a  nymph  or  goddess  of  some  sort,  perhaps  Pomona,  who  came  to 
scatter  the  earth  with  fruits,  though  the  hair,  treated  in  wavy  lines 
and  rimmed  with  crinkles  like  sea-shells,  rather  serves  to  turn  the 
fancy  toward  some  spirit  of  the  water.  The  name  is  of  course  of  no 
importance,  and  nothing  matters  but  beauty  and  fitness,  the  effects 
the  artist  aimed  at.  And  that  his  figure  is,  ideally  considered, 
appropriate  to  a  fountain  is  communicated  at  a  flash,  although,  to 
do  justice  to  the  artist,  it  must  emphatically  be  stated  that  the 
foundations  of  the  particular  fountain  for  which  it  was  designed 
had  only  been  begun  at  Bitter's  death  and  that  he  never  saw  the 
structure  which  now  adorns  the  Plaza.  Who  knows  what  changes 
he  would  have  effected  in  his  figure,  if  he  had  lived  to  swing  his 
plaster  model  into  place  and  study  it  in  its  appointed  setting? 
Who  knows  what  changes  he  would  have  induced  the  architect  to 
make?  At  any  rate  when,  a  year  after  Bitter's  death,  the  figure, 
faithfully  completed  in  the  sculptor's  spirit  by  his  friend,  Isidore 
Konti,  was  unveiled,  fountain  and  figure  sounded  something  less 
than  a  full,  blended  chord.  That  will  remain  a  matter  for  regret 
only  partially  canceled  by  the  beauty  of  the  figure  taken  by  itself,. 
a  beauty  victoriously  asserted  by  the  half-turned  body,  the  sloping 
shoulders,  and  the  long,  graceful  arms. 

On  April  9,  having  worked  all  day  in  the  sun  and  air  with  the 
river  rolling  by  under  his  feet,  he  elatedly  telephoned  his  wife  at 
New  York  that  he  was  as  good  as  done  with  his  last  touches  on  the 
plaster  model  and  that  he  must  terminate  his  long  withdrawal 
from  his  family  with  a  little  celebration.  If  Fate,  as  some  of  the 
Greek  poets  hold,  is  often  moved  to  pity  ere  it  strikes  and  prepares 
its  victim  for  the  journey  he  must  go  with  a  whispered  warning,  on 
this  occasion  it  is  certain  the  Dread  Power  stood  aside,  voiceless 

66 


A     BIOGRAPHY 

and  inscrutable.  No  palest  shadow  of  approaching  death  fell  upon 
Bitter,  who  was  in  one  of  his  most  expansive  moods.  He  took  his 
wife  to  the  opera  and  between  acts  spoke  only  of  the  future,  like 
one  for  whom  the  world  is  only  just  beginning  to  disclose  its  wonders. 
Then,  the  opera  over,  husband  and  wife  stepped  across  Broadway 
to  take  the  street  car,  when  suddenly  an  automobile,  running 
amuck  in  the  crowd,  swooped  down  on  them.  They  had  just  time 
to  exchange  a  glance.  The  next  moment,  as  his  wife,  knocked  over, 
fell  safely  between  the  wheels,  the  wildly  careering  machine  went 
over  his  body. 

To  us  mortals,  lured  by  the  dream  of  immortality  but  not  per- 
suaded by  it,  the  grim  Reaper  with  the  scythe  is  never  a  welcome 
guest,  not  even  when  he  comes  in  the  fulness  of  the  harvest,  but  when 
he  descends  suddenly  out  of  Nowhere  reaping  the  tender  laughing 
girl  or  the  strong  man  at  his  work,  he  strikes  white  terror  into  our 
souls  by  the  violence  and  stark  unreason  of  his  act.  It  is  this  feeling 
— the  needlessness  and  pity  of  the  thing — that  rules  our  mind  in  con- 
templating the  sudden  cutting  off  of  Karl  Bitter  at  the  height  of  his 
powers.  But  let  us  make  no  mistake.  While  what  he  had  accom- 
plished was  in  a  sense  only  an  earnest  of  vastly  greater  things  to 
follow,  he  had  done  what  he  had  done — a  strong  man's  work  in  his 
allotted  hour.  The  e\idence  of  that  work  survives  him  and  remains 
for  us  contemporaries  to  see  and  to  enjoy,  but  not  to  judge  in  any 
final  way.  That  will  be  the  task  of  those  who  come  after  us  and 
who  will  perform  it  in  the  even  and  impartial  light  of  Time. 

But  what  we  of  his  own  generation,  and  we  alone,  are  able 
to  speak  of  with  authority  is  the  man  who  has  passed  from  mortal 
sight  forever.  If  this  narrative  has  not  been  wholly  futile,  it  must 
have  made  clear  that  the  most  constant  effort  of  his  being  was 
expended  in  the  direction  of  his  own  self-realization.  His  deep- 
down  conviction  was  that  only  a  rich  personality  could  effect  a 
worth-while  expression  in  the  materials  of  his  art.  This  lifelong 
struggle  with  himself  accounts  for  the  uninterrupted  growth  which, 
as  one  looks  backward  over  his  career,  stands  out  as  the  distinctive 
mark  of  both  his  yicrsonality  and  his  art  and  which  exj)lains  why, 

67 


KARLBITTER 

everj'where  and  throughout,  life  and  work  are  of  one  piece.  He  was 
a  faithful  friend,  a  devoted  husband  and  father,  and  a  loyal  and 
active  citizen.  Even  people  who  met  him  only  casually  quickly 
and  instinctively  responded  to  the  vigor  of  his  mind  and  the  candor 
of  his  spirit,  and  those  who  saw  him  day  after  day,  from  his  lovers 
at  the  fireside  to  the  humblest  employee  of  shop  and  house,  never 
felt  other  than  that  he  was  a  tower  of  strength  and  the  soul  of  honor. 
Of  his  many  works  the  most  winning  and  consummate,  as  also — if 
our  human  hopes  be  indeed  more  than  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made 
of — the  most  permanent,  was  himself. 


68 


■>.     PORTRAIT  OF  KARL  BITTER  (1907) 


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